


The History of Us

by justmeandmysillystuff



Series: The History of Us [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Coronavirus, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, I promise the ending is nice just bare with me, M/M, Quarantine, Reincarnation, Very fast updates, Victuuri falling in love in every century, World War II, victorian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24120934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justmeandmysillystuff/pseuds/justmeandmysillystuff
Summary: In the infinite line that is the universe, Viktor and Yuuri will find each other and fall in love, through thick and thin, over and over again.Each chapter is a differen year, a different century, and a different setting for the same, boundless love.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: The History of Us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1791973
Comments: 64
Kudos: 97





	1. XV Century

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Story time: This is actually a very old fic of mine that I never quite finished. My idea was to portray the tragedies of history, and when I reached XXI century I couldn't really think of anything. I had some ideas but they led me nowhere, and so I dropped it.  
> However, here we are, living such a sad moment in our history I never thought I would witness. We are all pained and affected by this in some way, some more than others.  
> Writing keeps my mind clear, so I came up with a new chapter for this. However, my writing has improved since 2017, so I decided to rewrite every chapter and upload it again. I just have to make corrections, so the updates will be very quick.  
> Anyways, sorry for the angst. Last chapter will be nice I swear.

As soon as he heard the news, Yuuri crossed the entire village in a senseless run. He bumped into passerby and peddlers, ladies with baskets filled with fresh made bread, he jumped and dodged a few chicken walking in his way, and left behind the small, murky workshop and the smell of sawdust.  
  
He would have preferred it was him who told him. He would have preferred to hear it from his own mouth, his own picking of words that would have made the news so vague and meaningless. So trivial. Viktor had always known how to fool him, and there was nothing Yuuri wished more intensely in that moment that being indisputably fool.  
  
  
He could hear his family calling after him, even though it was maybe just his imagination by then. His head echoing the concerned voices he had left behind meters and meters away, his memory stuck in the same instant his world had fallen apart and acting it on repeat: The sound of his sister sawing in the corner, the particles of sawdust flying over his vision and sticking onto his lashes, his parents puzzled faces and Vicchan barking at the stranger that appeared at the carpentry’s door.  
  
_“Yuuri, son, are you ok?”_  
  
_“Who was it?”_  
  
_“You look pale”_  
  
A cart almost ran over him and he was forced to stop. His heels sunk in the dry soil of the road and his body jerked forwards by the sudden brake, instinctively; only realizing he almost got ran over once he found himself in a cloud of dust, hearing the sounds of neighing and the protests of the already distant carter.  
  
Yuuri used that pause to catch his breath, from both the running and the scare, looking around like a frightened animal. He didn’t know where he was. In fact, he hadn’t known where he was even going until he saw the contour of towers in the horizon. Distant colorful flags, waving in the distance.  
  
He hadn’t noticed he was looking for him, until he found himself in his side of town.  
  
Now the atmosphere made more sense, the brighter dresses and the looks of menace. It was usually the other way around, it was Viktor who came to visit him to the village. Because an ordinary artisan walking among nobility was nothing but a cockroach. But, on the other hand, a knight riding through the poor streets of the markets was the picture of a miracle.  
  
“Where do you think you are?” A tall man grabbed him by the shoulder, keeping him from walking further into nobility lands “You are a peasant, aren’t you? You should be working the land! We need provisions! Don’t you know we are getting into war?”  
  
Hearing it again, felt like pressing a finger on the sore.   
  
“I’m an artisan!” He raised his voice “I need to see one of Lord Giacometti’s knights!”  
  
The man, who was wearing one of the kingdom’s armors, pushed him by the shoulder and snorted dismissively.  
  
“Go back to your workshop, knights have no time for you. They’ll be leaving tomorrow”  
  
Yuuri swallowed a mouthful of air that felt solid, and it fell to his stomach like a stone.  
  
“Please” He begged, pushing all pride aside “Please, don’t make me leave, I need to…”  
  
He raised his head, trying to find some mercy within those sharp eyes. Instead, he found the edge of a sword.  
  
“Get out”  
  
As he made his way back through the forest, Yuuri felt like a vase someone broke and rearranged badly. His heart was beating at his stomach, his entrails were clogging his throat, and his eyes refused to show him nothing but his memory’s cruel caprices: Viktor.  
  
_“I’ll be going to war someday”_ It sounded surreal whenever he said it. It did when they were kids, and played with sticks as if they were swords. And it did just one week ago, when they cuddled naked in front of the fireplace _“You’ll see, I’ll bring honor to this kingdom”_  
  
Of course he thought like that, he was a knight after all. If they weren’t wooed with honor and prestige then there was no way they would accept the calamities of war. But Viktor was born a villager, just like him. It wasn’t until his mother got pregnant from a noble that his new little sibling opened them a door to aristocracy, and he had the chance to become a knight.  
  
Knighthood seemed almost like a miracle back then, it meant prosperity and wealth, and it left his family well positioned. Yuuri could totally understand what he did, why he left the markets. But that didn’t mean he was able to ignore the downside.  
  
In a kingdom like theirs, so hidden and independent in the middle of the forest, war was nothing but a buzz, and absurd, meaningless term, flying at the back of everyone’s minds. The possibility of the king risking his small troops to gain more land they didn’t need was almost ludicrous, it wasn’t real.  
  
Until it was.  
  
When he found himself alone, Yuuri let himself rest against the trunk of a tree, giving his knees a rest and sliding all the way onto the ground. He would have liked to believe he had selected a tree at random, but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t care about that place or the memories it carried. Viktor and he spent a lot of time in that clear of the forest. Sometimes they spent the entire day there, eating berries and talking about anything; lighting a bonfire and camping under the bare stars.  
  
An echo broke through the silence of the forest, and he didn’t realize he was crying until he acknowledged it as his own sob. He grabbed his head in his hands, his palms pressing onto his wet eyes and his fingers tangling onto the hair of his fringe.  
  
He knew Viktor would never leave without a goodbye, but the thought of never seeing him again was a nightmare he would never wake up from. He needed to see him, he needed to tell him something. He didn’t know what exactly, but the words were already stuck in his throat.  
  
His memory messed with him, showing him a little, silver-haired kid in every corner of the forest. He remembered cheeky smiles and silly games, round after round of hide and seek. He thought about those afternoons they spent haunting, back when Viktor’s father was still alive and he used to teach them how to build rabbit traps.  
  
If he tried hard enough, he could still picture a young Viktor, holding a dead hare by the ankles and smiling contently. He used to be so proud of his prays, while Yuuri could barely stare at them. He loathed hunting almost as much as he hated hunger. It was necessary, they needed the food. He preferred to do the process as fast and impersonal as possible, letting a distant arrow do the job and carrying the body inside a bag. But Viktor was used to it, somehow. Death didn’t bring the same goosebumps to him. And he carried the animals proudly, barehanded, like an ultimate trophy.  
  
When he heard the sound of galloping and neighing, he wasn’t really surprised. His legs had driven him to that specific spot in the forest for a reason, and it wasn’t just the beauty of its landscape or the perfection of its sunsets.   
  
“Fancy seeing you here, my gentleman” The voice was so easy to recognize, even distorted by the metallic effect of the helmet “I thought I’d have to look through mountains, skies and oceans to find you. Instead, I looked through you. And mountains, skies and oceans is what I found”  
  
Normally, Yuuri would follow the lines of his flattery, even if as a joke. But right then, with anguish pressing in his chest and radiating into fury, when all he could do was dry his tears with fire, he was in no mood for their usual teasing.  
  
“So you resolved to appear, in the end”  
  
Viktor jumped off his horse’s back and took off his helmet, waving his silver fringe away from his puzzled face.  
  
“What’s wrong?” He had the audacity to ask “Yurio told me he saw you being kicked out by a guard, so I thought I’d maybe find you here”  
  
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong, you say?” Yuuri stood up, eyes dry and swollen as he pressed an accusing finger onto the cold metal of Viktor’s armor “You send a messenger to tell me there’s a war, that you are leaving me, that you are fighting one of the most powerful kingdoms out there …and then you ride all the way here to ask me what’s wrong??”  
  
“It’s not as bad as you paint it, Yuuri. Calm down, it’s just…”  
  
“Just what?” The accusing finger turned into a whole fist, as he hit his shielded chest twice “Just a battle? Just a war??”  
  
“What do you want me to do? I’m a knight! It’s my duty, I have no choice”  
  
“Run!” He shouted, pushing him “Run away! Don’t go!”  
  
Now it was Viktor’s turn to raise his voice, as he grabbed his angry lover by the wrists and kept him from hitting him.  
  
“Stop it, Yuuri! I can’t run away! It would be betrayal to Lord Giacometti! I wouldn’t be able to call myself a man of honor if I left!”  
  
“I don’t give a damn about your honor!” Yuuri got loose of his hold, staring at him with bloodshot eyes “Viktor, you are going to die!”  
  
When he heard the first sob, he took a hand to his own burning lids to try to dry the weeping away. But the tears weren’t there. As he raised his head in surprise, he found them falling down Viktor’s cheeks instead.  
  
“Viktor?”  
  
“Do you think I don’t mind??” He cried “Do you think I wouldn’t like to stay? That I don’t want to keep waking up next to you? That I won’t miss my house, my family, my life here?”  
  
Yuuri tried to reach out for him, but he stepped back.  
  
“Viktor, I…”  
  
“I sent a messenger because I didn’t want to have to talk with you about this, nor with anyone! I don’t want to say goodbye, because this is not a goodbye! I will come back!!” He said, and he didn’t sound like he believed in his own words “I will come back…”  
  
Within his own sorrow, Yuuri had never stopped to consider Viktor’s feelings. And there he was, shrinking into his knight suit. He had been so selfish, never had he considered Viktor being scared.  
  
Without thinking about it twice, he jumped the distance between them and hugged him close.   
  
“I’m sorry” He held him tight, molding onto his shape and burying his head on the crook of his neck.“I’m so sorry”  
  
Viktor wrapped his arms around him as best as he could. The armor stood awkwardly between their bodies as they prolonged the embrace, holding onto each other in silence.  
  
“It'll be ok, love” Viktor took off his gloves, wanting to caress his with his bare hands, rubbing his thumb across his cheekbone “I’ll be ok, I’ll come back for you”  
  
Yuuri didn't want to be comforted, he felt like it should be the other way around. The knight was hours away from leaving, and yet it wasn't him who was whining like a baby.  
  
“Stay with me” He whispered to him, but Viktor shook his head.   
  
“I wish I could, Yuuri. But I have my prestige to defend” He insisted “I wouldn’t be able to live knowing I betrayed my honor”  
  
Yuuri couldn’t understand it, the whole honor and prestige deal. He, an artisan, who had never even tasted glory, whose body would be thrown into a common pit and not even a tombstone would remember his name. There was no way he understood.  
  
Somehow, he couldn’t help but remembering their hunting trips when they were younger. The rabbits. Viktor holding up a price he thought so esteemed, while Yuuri felt plainly disgusted.  
  
“I’ll miss you”  
  
They stood like that for a while, not daring to say anything, until the sounds of the forest became way too obvious. Yuuri couldn't speak, he had nothing to say that wouldn't start a fight again. War was war, there was no good connotation for it inside his head. He could see his lover's thinking behind his eyes, a desperate look for confederating words. None of them could tolerate the tension.  
  
“Do you remember what happened at this place?” Viktor opted to reach for the past, it seemed to be safer than the present.  
  
Yuuri hummed in agreement, knowing he was just pushing the matter aside, but letting himself be fooled:

“We kissed for the first time”  
  
“The first of many”  
  
He didn’t know if he was attempting a conversation, or just audibly evoking a memory of comfort. Yuuri smiled at him, but it wasn’t quite a smile. It was just an overwhelmed pursing of his lips, an outer manifestation of the clenching of his gut.  
  
They kissed, and without knowing, they had sealed some unspoken pact. A truce of silence, of withering arguments, and enjoying each other while they still could.  
  
Their last afternoon together should be just like any other. They climbed on trees to collect some fruit, making a small competition out of who picked up more. Viktor always carried a blanket on top of Makkachin's saddle, and he threw in onto the grass for them to lay down. There was some talking, mindless and empty, as they stared at the horse while it grazed.

When it started to get darker they lighted a bonfire, just like in the old days. Yuuri was trying to get used to that term, “the old days”. From that day on, everything they used to do together would be part of that melancholic title. The sun left the sky to leave room for the moon, and as Yuuri glanced up at it, blinded by the whiteness, he wished for it to never leave. Because once it left, once it disappeared into the morning, it would take Viktor away with it.  
  
They only had one last night, and he wanted it to last forever.  
  
After they ate the fruit they had picked up, they had sex under the dark night's sky. There was no point in any timeline, in any universe, in which Yuuri wouldn’t bask in the feeling of making love to Viktor. Yet, it felt different. The touches were the same as always, but Yuuri was distracted by the effort of retaining them. Of burning them into his mind. He wanted to make sure that moment was what he remembered whenever he heard the name of Sir Viktor, Giacometti’s bravest knight. So as they played that little carnal act, he couldn’t enjoy the moment for what it currently was. He thought of it as a memory, he praised it for the value it would have in the future, in the upcoming lonely nights. And it didn’t feel as real.  
  
They fell asleep right there, bodies pressed onto each other, and Yuuri wasn’t surprised when he woke up to the sound of clinking metal, Viktor trying to put his armor on in silence.  
  
He had said it himself, he didn’t want to say goodbye.  
  
Day wasn’t fully on yet, the sky was still dark but glowing with the first lights of morning. He knew the troops would leave in some few hours, and Viktor should be there soon before they thought he had betrayed them for cowardice.  
  
Pretending to sleep, Yuuri waited until he heard the distinctive sound of Makkachin’s neighing, the thud of a body jumping onto the saddle, and the clinking of the armor. Only once he knew the other was ready to leave, he stood up, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders and approaching the knight, who stared down at him in pained silence.  
  
When he was about to say something, Yuuri took a finger to his lips, letting him know there was no need to say that word, to say goodbye if he didn't want to. But he couldn't leave without a kiss.  
  
After they pulled away, Viktor said:  
  
“Worry not, my gentleman. Even if it's not in this life, I'll find you in the next one. And the next one, and the one after. And I'll make you fall in love with me, all over again”  
  
As Yuuri saw him part, riding far into the density of the forest, he found himself alone in that place that was meant for two. He knew that, from that day on, it would never be the same. Because in his memory, that place wouldn't mean their first kiss anymore.  
  
But the last, instead.


	2. XVII Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for this one

Yuuri inhaled gently, carefully, agonizingly slow. He treated the murky, humid air as if it were the most delicate substance to be. As if it might break, as if it might shatter inside his lungs and disappear from existence. When, in reality, it wasn’t the air but his own body what was in the verge of collapse. That breeze, frail as it was, would have been enough to dismantle Yuuri’s small body, fragile as a blob of wet paper, lying on the filthy streets of the rainy city.

The rusty awning of a closed fruit’s shop was his perfect shelter for the downpour. From there, he could hear the rain dipping loudly onto the roof, flowing and falling vertically through the edges, creating a thick, translucent curtain of water that isolated him from the world. Within the last few months, it had become normal to find that kind of abandoned shops. That year’s bad harvest had caused hundreds of peasants to fall in bankrupt. Including his parents, that hadn’t been able to pay the taxes.

He saw the blurs of carts and horses, wooden wheels cutting through the mud and adult legs with smart clothes and shoes jumping above the puddles. He couldn’t help but stare at his own, naked feet. Black dirt stuck between the toes and under his nails, skin rough and thick. He didn’t really mind though. If he had a pair of shoes right then, he would sell them for a piece of bread without a second thought.

His stomach had stopped growling days ago, giving up on its laments. Hunger had abandoned its characteristic feeling of heartburn and emptiness to become a chronic state of exhaustion and discomfort. A body he could barely instruct anymore, as he waited for Viktor to come back with some food.

Finally, he exhaled. And it hurt. The air burnt as it made its way out his empty organism, as it deflated his inflamed belly, swollen from the continued job of digesting itself in the lack of something else to consume. He had been hungry before, of course he had. In fact, his mouth had been filled with more pleas than actual food throughout his whole life. Little were the memories of steaming plates and juicy fruit. But it had only gone downhill ever since their land had been confiscated, and ever since those taxmen had taken his parents away.

“Guess what I got!” He barely noticed when Viktor appeared through the rain into their little dry space. With the torrent it was hard to barely listen to anything, but what he did catch though, was the prominent smell of bread.  
He tried to sit properly, taking in the miraculous image of Viktor holding a bread roll. His damp hair, silver and shoulder-length; his fair skin dirtied by mud and rests of sunburn; and his heart-shaped smile, that was now incomplete with the absence of a canine, a tooth he had lost in a fight with a shopkeeper during one of his hunts for food. It was still uplifting to see him smile. But Yuuri would never fail to notice its missing piece.

He tried to reach out for a piece of bread, but Viktor stopped him.

“Nuh-uh! You know the rules!” He said, smugly “I was the one who stole it, so I deserve the biggest piece”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. He was barely 12 and Viktor was 14, but it was quite obvious who was more mature. 

“Was it hard?” He asked, accepting the smallest half of the roll.

“Not really” Viktor sat right next to him, crossing his legs and taking a bite right away “I waited till the baker got distracted, he didn’t really see me”

Yuuri nodded, looking at the bread between his dirty hands.

“Aren’t you eating?” The question sounded concerned, and he didn’t dare to look at his friend as he answered. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

“I feel sick”

“Sick? Sick how? You are not hungry?”

“I don’t know” He shrugged, trying to feel something other than the overall malaise.

“How can you not know? Yuuri, you didn’t eat in days!” Viktor rationed the bread again, giving him a larger piece instead “I can give you the bigger half today, if you are not feeling well…” 

Yuuri accepted the extra crumbs and smiled at him, thankful. Yet, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to eat right then. His stomach had already contracted within itself and it felt like it had closed for good. He knew he needed it, he knew his body begged for that piece, that entire roll and even more. But he couldn’t bring himself to swallow. Not even spit could go down his throat.

Still, he tried. He cut a small piece between his fingers and stuffed it in, munching difficulty.

“Gulp that down. Please” Viktor begged him, seeing he kept shifting the food inside his mouth “I know you feel bad...but it's worse if you don't eat”

Yuuri obeyed, and the mouthful fell dry and solid onto his empty stomach, almost echoing. There suddenly was a thumb on the corner of his lip, cleaning the crumbs away. He looked upwards to meet Viktor’s teasing smile, shining on him from above, always proud of being able to take care of him. The thing was, it was usually the other way around. It was Yuuri who sewed their torn clothes, it was him who built the best shelters, and who comforted Viktor through his nightmares. But it was ok, he didn’t mind. In return, he got something indispensable: his loving company.

“You look tired” Viktor said-

“I am”

He sulked, seeing him sighing laboriously, rubbing his temples and his eyes with scrawny fingers. They usually didn’t sleep if they weren’t around each other. The streets were dangerous, and they couldn’t let their guard down.

“Come here” He offered his shoulder, and in so second Yuuri was clinging onto his figure, his half of the bread roll forgotten on his lap “Try to rest a little bit, did you have a hard day?”

Yuuri proceeded to tell him about his morning, about how he spent over an hour cleaning the wheels of some man’s cart, who had promised to pay. But as soon as he had been finished it started raining right away, and the man said the work had been useless since the cart would get covered in mud anyways. He explained how he had tried to run after him, to ask for his well-deserved payment, but his legs had given out and his heart had protested inside his ribcage, telling him to slow it down.

He hated it, he hated what he had become. He hated the headaches, the dizziness, the breaths that sounded like wheezes before the minimum effort and he was tired. Tired of his efforts being in vain, of always being hungry and cold, and of the looks of disgust of every passerby as they saw him there, lying on the street.

“What a moron, I hope his cart gets stuck in the mud” Viktor scoffed, paying less attention to Yuuri’s fatigue than he probably should have “Like that one we saw the other day! Remember? The carter was so fat the horses refused to keep pulling!”

“Hmm” Yuuri hummed a soft giggle, drowsy, but not exactly sleepy. The sound of rainfall and the echoes of the world outside their bubble were somehow lulling, and he found himself diving deeper onto Viktor’s embrace.

Viktor seemed to notice right away, and shifted his body for him to rest more comfortably, taking a hand to his dark, humid hair and pushing back his bangs.

It was only then, with Yuuri’s ear pressed so firmly onto the other’s chest and listening to the calm, even pounding of his heart, that he realized just how slow his was beating in comparison.  
He coughed on purpose, trying to put it back in march. But once he started he couldn’t stop, and he fell into a coughing fit.

Never had his lungs made that noise.

“Whoa, are you ok??” there was a pair of hands rubbing his back, patting it inexpertly, as if he were choking on something “Yuuri??”

“I’m fine, I’m fine” He cleared his throat “Sorry”

“Don’t be…” That same pair of hands now held him gently in place, stroking his shoulders “Are you sure you are ok, though? You didn’t catch a cold, didn’t you?”

“No, don’t worry about it, I just…”

“What if you catch lung disease? Yuuri, I heard about those things, it’s not good”

Yuuri let him touch his forehead, first with his hand and then with his lips, trying to take his temperature. Even if he knew his coughing was no cold. They were in summer. And he had no catarrh.

“It’s not lung disease” He insisted, grabbing Viktor’s hand in his own, looking at him in the eyes to give him reassurance “I promise, it doesn’t feel like that”

That seemed to calm him down a bit, and after a quick sigh of relief, he took their intertwined hands to his mouth, giving them a quick peck. Beyond the awning, the rain was starting to cease. The last remaining droplets were merged with the leftovers of water dropping from the pointy roofs and the branches of the trees. Far away, in the horizon, the lights of twilight could be seen through the clouds.

“Just in case, we should look for a better shelter tonight” Viktor said, looking forwards into nowhere. His fingertips had dug under the other’s shirt absentmindedly, and it trailed soft patters onto the skin of his back “You know, somewhere warmer, maybe we can try to go to Yuuko’s”  
Yuuko was a nice young lady who sometimes let homeless kids sleep in the empty corners of her barn. But it was pretty far away, and most times it was completely crowded.

“Hmm, I don’t think we’ll find a place” Yuuri tried to protest “And we probably won’t get there before nightfall”

“If we leave now, I think we will” Viktor shook his shoulder, insistent, chuckling at the annoyed snort he got for a response “Come on, it’s worth the shot!”

The truth was, Yuuri was really bad at long walks. He got tired and lazy rather easily.  
But he was also really bad at denying Viktor.

“Ok, let’s try”

Viktor cheered, helping him stand up and clean the dirt away from his clothes. But he didn’t miss the way his knees seemed to quiver as he got on his feet, nor the unfinished piece of bread falling from his lap as he stood.

They walked hand in hand, as always, their feet sinking into the puddles of mud and stagnant rainfall, slippery and dense. At first, when they had just met, they used to hold hands as not get lost and separated by the town’s crowds. That had been over a year ago, back when they both sill had houses and a family to come back to, when the financial decline had barely began. Back then, they didn’t search the streets for food. They didn’t steal. They just looked for easy jobs with easy payments, barter, polishing some shoes for a bag of seeds, some utensil, whatever they needed at home. Yuuri remembered freshly how relieved his mother had been when he befriended an older kid, she said he would be safer, and that they should always stick together. He still kept up with that promise.

But holding Viktor’s hand had become so much more than that. It wasn’t only seeking for security, for protection. It was something else, new, that Yuuri couldn’t quite bring himself to understand. Or maybe he did comprehend, and he just didn’t want to acknowledge it.

It hadn’t always been survival for them, they did remember what a house felt like, a family. Love. They knew about love. They knew that people were drawn together by that mythical force, that they could feed from each other’s company, and that fear wasn’t the only emotion that could get a heart to speed up. 

However, life was different for them now.

They knew they would never get a house of their own. If climate kept ruining the harvests, getting a job in someone else’s field would be impossible as well. They would be homeless forever.

Keeping each other close, holding hands, was the closest to a home they thought they would ever get. The only stable, steady soil they could would ever step on, was the one they walked together. And they never wanted to part from their only firm ground.

“Do you think Yuuko will have some leftovers to spare? I’m so hungry” Viktor complained, a loud rumble of his stomach emphasizing his words.

“To be honest, I don’t even think she’ll have room for us” Yuuri popped his bubble, as always “Why don’t you eat the bread I left?”

“Nuh-uh! That’s yours! You need to eat too, just wait till you feel better” He squeezed his hand, pulling from it for him to walk faster “Why do you have to be so pessimist though? Believe in my plans for once!”

Yuuri rolled his eyes, trying to catch up with the longer, faster steps.

“If your plans ever worked…”

“Rude!” Viktor gasped, high-pitched and dramatic “Name one of my plans that backfired”

“Stealing that farmer’s pig”

“Ok, in my defense, I didn’t know they were so heavy”

They both laughed, truthfully.

“Let’s hurry up, Yuuri. Night’s starting to fall”

Everything around them was wet and dense. The bogged soil, their sweaty foreheads; even the wind, so humid and heavy with moisture it was hard to breathe. It felt heavy, almost crushing, against Yuuri’s feeble bones. It was getting harder to unstick his feet from the gluey mud, and work such thick air through his tired lungs.

He didn’t know how long he would be able to keep going. He had fainted thrice on that same week, and he could see a fourth about to kick in at any moment. It was easy to tell by then. When the black dots started buzzing and flying in his vision, then it was time to sit down for a while. But he didn’t want to tell Viktor, he didn’t want to bother him with his complaints.

“Come on, hurry!! It will be all crowded if we don’t move faster!”

He wasn’t sure what was what finally buckled him.

Maybe it was his legs, bony and weak and unable to carry his weight anymore. Maybe his lungs couldn’t keep up with his ragged breath, or his heart had failed to settle a proper rhythm. Or maybe, it had been all and more combined. His body putting up a strike, a denial to keep going under those conditions.

But for whatever reason, his weary, slow steps fell into stillness. And before he could register the effects of gravity, the sky was rolling forwards into the horizon and he was falling on his knees.

“Yuuri? Yuuri! What’s wrong!?” In no second, Viktor was running towards his side, peeling him off the sticky mud and holding him in his arms “Yuuri?”

He closed his eyes, trying to get the world to stop spinning. But even the lights behind his lids would dance around, making him shake.

“I don't feel well” was all he got to say, the only words he could find “I don't...I don't know what's…”

“Eat! Eat, please! You can have the whole roll, I don't care. I'll steal some more...but please...please, eat!”

It wasn't until that moment, until he heard the desperation in Viktor's voice, until he opened his eyes and waited for his vision to focus and he saw that look of utter shock and despair on his face, that he considered that remote, far-off option.

It wasn’t until he remembered how Viktor’s parents died, that he realized he might have been starving.

Bread was pressed onto his lips but he closed his mouth and shook his head, tears of frustration pooling in his eyes as he looked up at his friend. He couldn't eat.

Viktor hugged him close, letting him rest between his arms, the support being much more comfortable than the floor underneath, and Yuuri clung onto the heat.

“Yuuri, what are you feeling? What can I do for you? Do you need any water?”

No, he had stopped feeling thirsty a long time ago. He tried to remember when it had been the last time he had drank some water. He couldn't.

“I’m cold” He shivered, and Viktor's arms grew tighter around him but he could barely feel it.

“I can give you my shirt” He tried, pulling from his clothes. But Yuuri stopped him. With a sob repressed behind his pursed lips, he shook his head again. “Don’t do this to me…let me help you, dammit!!” He didn't know when Viktor started crying, but next thing he noticed, he was being rocked back and forth, with a hand trying to rub heat onto his back “Tell me, please tell me what to do!!”

Yuuri tried to answer, he truthfully did. But as he filled his lungs with the air he needed to talk, all he heard was a high, acute wheeze. A sudden weight was pressed onto his ribcage, jumping onto his chest, straddling him. But as he took a hand to desperately reach for his contracting gut, he found nothing. Only emptiness and air he couldn’t breathe, that he frantically tried to suck into his throat but it just wouldn’t blow in. 

“Help!!” He could hear Viktor screaming, but it wasn’t meant to him. He was begging to every random passerby, dozens of deaf ears that wouldn’t listen, immune to the sadness of his voice “Help me, please! His pulse is really slow!!”

His head had fallen to rest on the other’s legs, and as he swallowed useless air like a fish out of water, all he could see was the starless sky of the murky night and some silver locks of hair  
blowing with the summer’s breeze. Everything was framed by a white smudge of blur in the edges, that kept getting thicker and thicker and left less and less to see.

“Sir, please listen to me! Miss! Please!! He is dying!!”

Before his impotence to speak, his lost words twirled within some gasp in his heaving chest, he took a deaden hand to rest on the other’s cheekbone. He caressed him as best as he could, and it was enough to get Viktor to look at him.

He didn’t know if the face he saw right then, the blue eyes and missing tooth, was in fact real or just a projection of his pious memory. It was too vivid, too clear and too pure compared to the crumbling image of the world around it, and he suspected of its authenticity as he saw the pink flush on his cheeks, his plumper face, his hair short and neat and shiny, clean. Just like it used to be.

In a race with nature, he tried to outrun the numbing tickles growing up his body before they got to his face, and he outlined a warm, kind smile.

“Yuuri…”

A shaky pair of lips pressed a kiss onto his forehead, and that’s the last sprout of heat he felt before his body grew senseless.

The final thing he saw, before his eyes rolled onto the back of his head, was a forced smile on Viktor’s mouth, too. A heart-shaped one, as always. Bright and wholesome and devastated, as he turned to kiss the palm of his inert hand.

Yuuri closed his lids and took that painful image with him, the one of Viktor gulping down his grief and grinning at him, just to gift him some proper last memory.

The heart of his smile, wasn’t the only one incomplete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise next one won't be so tragic (kind of)...anyone up for some victorian victuuri??  
> Please, if you have the time, leave your thoughts in the comments! It helps me improve my writing! (and it makes me happy :D)


	3. XIX Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a complete story in my head about this victorian AU, but im a coward so here's this fragment. Enjoy my laziness.

“And horse riding, of course I enjoy horse riding. You should see my mare, oh you would adore her, her lineage is exquisite. And her mane, oh, her silver mane! Reminds me of your hair, actually”

A lock of said silver hair escaped the restrains of its hairdo, insolently falling over Viktor’s left eye. He tried to tuck it back behind his ear, but it just wouldn’t stay in place. Not that he really cared, to be honest, he despised that hairstyle. It made his forehead look huge. His efforts for keeping it neat and on point were nothing but a desperate source of entertainment, a mere distraction, as he heard that lady talk.

“I always ride my adored mare in the vast hectares of my father’s fields. Did I mention we own a huge portion of land, good sir? Oh if you only saw the elms…the flowers!”

She was a flesh and bone doll, skin fair and spotless, whitened by the finest of powders all the way from her forehead to her prominent chest. Her lips were painted burgundy, darker on the inner side, and lipstick made her mouth look heart-shaped. Which, to be honest, must have been the only thing they had in common.

She barely modulated as she spoke. Her posture was as clean and solid as one of his garden’s statues. And about as dead, too. If it wasn’t for the sound of her high-pitched voice and her milky, flowery smell, Viktor would have sworn she was made of massif marble.

“And I also used to have a male stallion, which I adored profoundly! But I sold him to compete at the races…I miss him like crazy right now!”

“And why did you give him away, if you were so fond of it?”

“Oh, you see, he was ill. The weather in our fields gets rather cold through the winter. They recommended me he should move out to warmer lands, I did it for his health. You know; if you love him, let him go!”

He found that little chestnut phrase a little stupid, but he didn’t comment on it.

“I see” He sighed, shifting on his seat uncomfortably, feeling like the entire mansion was just too small for two “I see you have a book over there, what is it about?”

“Oh, this? It’s just a knitting manual”

Viktor let his body fall onto the backrest, exhausted, even though he hadn’t moved from there in the last two hours. It wasn’t her fault, he thought. That’s how women were told to act. People from his social environment were always the same.

Perhaps that was why the doors and arches of the mansion were so large: so that all those pompous, thick dresses could pass through. Also the huge, shiny windows, ready to show everyone their so needed reflections, and the tall roofs for the even taller egos. Rooms so huge and so full of ornaments and sculptures and chandeliers with their hundred hanging diamonds, only to be inhabited but not so bright and sparkly people. Everything was shiny silver, and silver was cold.

“Excuse me, are you done with your tea and biscuits, madam?”

The voice of the butler was a mouthful of fresh air, some short break from the stuffed atmosphere of awkward chatter and the smell of earl grey tea.

“Yes, we are. You may clear the table” She didn’t bother to hand him the tray, and the man had to walk all the way behind the couch onto the other side of the table to grab it without interjecting the conversation “As I was saying, my stallion is a champion. She…”

The butler dropped a spoon, and she did a short pause in her speech to eye him with annoyance at the interruption.

Viktor couldn’t help but stare at him, ducking awkwardly to find the small piece of cutlery between the thousand layers of the lady’s thick dress. He looked like he was in trouble. He kept glancing up at her ineptly, opening his mouth to tell her but closing it right away, afraid of cutting off the talk. In one moment she changed positions and crossed one leg over the other, making the dress lift for a fragment of second and the spoon to become visible within the sea of purple cloth. The snort that escaped Viktor’s mouth as he saw him trying to grab it slyly and failing miserably was totally unintentional. But it was loud, obvious, and it got him quite a questioning look from the lady, who didn’t understand she was making an easy task seem impossible for the poor servant.

“Adelia, darling! Your carriage is just outside the porch!”

A middle-aged woman, with a sour face and posture as firm as a broomstick’s, announced the end of Viktor’s weekly shift of torture.

“Is it five o’clock already?” Adelia gasped, taking one last suspicious look to the butler, who was now standing and cleaning the spoon satisfactorily “Oh, time flies!”

“Thanks for the announcement, mother” Viktor smiled at her. But it wasn’t a gesture of politeness, just the innate outline of relief before his imminent freedom.

“Did you two have a good time?”

“Of course we did” He took Adelia’s hand in his and left a quick peck on the back.

Just like he did with the last twelve ladies that visited his house that year.

Of course she didn’t know that, though, and of course it just pumped up her ego.

“Oh, Viktor, it was my pleasure”

Someone cleared his throat behind them.

“Would you want me to walk her towards the door, sir?” The butler asked.

“Oh, no, thank you. I’ll do it myself” Viktor answered, seductively, grabbing Adelia by the arm and guiding her flustered character outside the mansion.

His mother nodded elegantly and left the room in disillusion, already knowing her son too well, and being quick and smart to recognize yet another rejection.

“I would have some serious talk with your butler, if I were you” Adelia whispered to him, loud enough for the other man to hear, as Viktor opened the door for her “I think he’s sort of perverse, you see, getting between my legs like that”

“Totally unacceptable. I’ll make sure to put him on his place”

She hummed pleasantly, reluctantly letting go of his arm to get into her carriage.

Once the lady was inside the vehicle, her gloved hand waving at him through the window as she disappeared behind the gate, Viktor turned around and entered his house with a sigh, letting the cramped muscles of his cheeks rest from the gentle, polite efforts of his smile.

“Sir?”

The voice of the butler made him raise his head again, and he found himself standing still and calm in the middle of the empty hall. For the first time in hours, silent.

“With you I need to talk” He said, tone serious and severe, walking forwards and towards the servant “What do you think you were doing, getting in between the madam’s legs?”

“Oh, forgive my imprudence, sir”

“Sorry is not enough this time, poor Miss Orland’s not pleased…and neither am I”

“Did I misbehave?”

“If you misbehaved, you ask?” Viktor leaned forwards, gaze accusing as he stared down at the other man “Of course you did misbehave”

“Was I naughty, sir?”

His brow, purposely furrowed and angered, gave up to the effects of the other’s tilting smile.

“Naughty?” He grabbed his face between his hands “The naughtiest of all”

And, before he could elaborate his arguments, he pulled him in for an eager kiss.

They had learnt to ignore the eyes of the many pictures hanging on the walls, including the portrait of Viktor’s mother, which looked like it constantly disapproved of what it saw. As long as they weren’t real eyes and prejudices, they had nothing to worry about. And they didn’t have to stop.

They chortled, giggling onto the other’s lips as they heard the sound of their kissing echoing through the tall walls of the living room. Having that moment, that sole minute of intimacy, felt like the ultimate reward for Viktor’s every effort. All those hours of sugarless tea and chatter, of forced smiles and courtesy. They didn’t matter, if that meant he could have this.

“Bloody hell, I thought she would never leave”

“You tell me? I was starting to get jealous over here” Viktor felt the weight of a thumb falling onto his lower lip, his chin, his jaw “With all those compliments and heavy glances…”

“And what about you? Getting between her legs like you had business over there…”

“There was a spoon!”

They kissed again.

Viktor put nor barriers nor objections to the hands grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer, merging their mouths together as if they could melt onto the other. They only stopped as they heard the noise of wood creaking over their heads, some heavy shoes walking on the first floor; but it disappeared behind the sound of a closing door. They had some more time.

“Yuuri Katsuki, you are going to be the end of me” He said, eyes coming back from their paranoid visit to the stairs, falling back into their comfort zone.

Yuuri laughed, pushing him forwards until he hit some piece of furniture, pecking his lips one last time before he aimed for his neck.

“The end? But this is just the beginning…”

Viktor felt the metal of the table’s edge pressing onto his back, the cold surface of the silver running chills up his spine.

Yes, silver was cold. But Yuuri was warm. Yuuri knew how to fold towels to look like swans. He had the recipe for the perfect mint tea to cure colds, and lemon for the stomachaches. He always cut the crust out of the bread, because he knew Viktor didn’t like it. And he was kind to everyone. To the maids, to the cook, to sellers at the markets; his smile and his politeness had no restrictions. He did everything with stainless love.

How did he get him to fall in love with yet another lifeless, ornamented piece of ridiculous furniture for that ridiculous mansion?

At the beginning he thought he only did it for the money. When Viktor first started to realize the effect the other man had on him, he panicked, and he thought the only possible approach would be through his pocket. He started to pay him for little, extra favors. For further touches as he helped him get dressed in the mornings, for roaming hands and flashes of skin. He felt terrible, but Yuuri didn’t seem upset about it. He just accepted his pay and said nothing, and he assumed he must have really needed the money.

But one night, after a long, heated kiss on his bed, with their bodies pressed closed onto each other and their skins flushed, Yuuri hadn’t accepted the coins. He had just put them back on Viktor’s palm and had made him close his fist around it, sealing the unspoken pact with a flustered peck on the lips.

“Please come to my room tonight, I miss sleeping with you”

Viktor stroked his cheek, and Yuuri turned his face to kiss his palm.

“I’d like that. But what if she notices?”

“She won't, don't worry. We'll wait until she falls asleep”

Again, they hugged each other in a desperate grab for heat, a sample they could carry of each other once the time came for them to let go.

“Viktor, son!” The woman’s voice was heard from the stairs, and the lovers immediately parted and faked indifference “Viktor!”

“What is it, mother?”

She got into the room mindlessly, oblivious to the interruption.

“The cook is asking me what you want for dinner tonight”

She still looked a bit upset. Viktor knew she hated each time he rejected a lady, it was a disillusion for her. He thought he would have to invent a better excuse for his prolonged singleness, eventually.

“Oh, tell Takeshi I'll eat whatever he prepares”

“Ok” She almost turned to leave, gaze down and unimpressed. Suddenly, her eyes went back to her son in shock. She looked at him in awe, a smile taking over her pink lips “I'm going to write a letter. See you at the dinner table”

“See you, mother”

As she left, Viktor and Yuuri stared at each other, confused, not really aware of what had changed her mood. Yet, they didn't complain. They had just got the room for themselves again.

Later that evening, the whole ground floor smelt like chicken and rosemary. Viktor walked downstairs after a warm relaxing bath, which helped him clean the stress and the tedium of Adelia Orland’s voice out from his worn mind. He grinned, loving the scent of Takeshi’s cooking in the air, and the familiar sight of Yuuri and Yuuko setting the table together. His mother and he always ate on at the dining room’s main table, wooden and way too long for just two people, under the watch of quite a creepy portrait of Viktor’s father at one of the side’s walls. Why his parents insisted in those disturbing paintings, it was beyond his understanding. Sometimes, his mother would even drop unsettling comments like “don’t play with your food, he’s watching you” or “not in front of your father”. It made it sound as if he were dead, and it made Viktor really uncomfortable.

His father was a man of commerce, devoted to his finances to the point his business traveling had become a life-style and his house and family just an occasional business trip. He said he had another home overseas, where most of his investors were, and he usually sent letters trying to convince Viktor of paying him a visit. He never did.

Yet, as Yuuko served them their meal on the usual silver crockery, the man’s eyes were still heavy and observant as they took every bite.

“I’m very glad you enjoyed Miss Orland’s company today” After some minutes of eating in silence, his mother finally spoke “She comes from a perfect family, you know? I’m elated”

“Uh, yeah” Viktor shrugged it off.

“We should invite her again, before she moves back to her hometown. She came from really far away just to meet you, almost a whole week of traveling! It would be such a shame if we lost touch”

“A shame, indeed”

“Aren’t you excited? This is such a good opportunity”

Viktor didn’t quite understand what made this girl so different from all the other rich suiters that had sat with him an entire afternoon and their names hadn’t been heard within the mansion’s walls ever since. Adelia wasn’t the worst he had met, but she certainly wasn’t the best, either.

“I guess? Why the commotion, though?”

“Are you serious, Viktor? This is your chance to finally get married!”

He coughed into his glass, almost spitting his drink, and looking back at his father’s portrait apologetically.

“Excuse me?”

“This is the first time you actually show interest in one of the suitors! I wrote the Orland family a letter thanking them and inviting them to have dinner with us on Saturday!”

“You did what? I never said I liked her, mother!”

“You sure?”

He saw her pointing at the side of her bare neck, and his hand immediately jumped to cover the bright red love-bite he knew was marking his own skin.

“It’s not what you are thinking. Please, let me explain, I…”

“Why are you so ashamed of love, Viktor? Were all this years of rejecting ladies just shyness? I didn’t know you could be so timid!”

“Mother, I don’t like Adelia”

“Nonsense!” She snorted “Why would you let her kiss you if you didn’t? It’s the first time you get so involved with someone! You can’t let this opportunity slip! You just need to…”

“I didn’t kiss her, hell!”

The hum of silence flooded the room to exhaustion, with the only exception of Viktor’s ragged breath cutting though its dense flow. Only then, once he heard the clicking of bouncing cutlery, he realized he had stood up and hit the table quite violently. His face was burning, his hands were sweating cold, both his mother’s and his father’s eyes were digging holes onto the bruise of his neck, and the truth bubbled in his mouth like rabies.

“If you didn’t kiss her, then who…”

“I’m in love with someone else, mother” He said, gaze hidden within the floorboards “For years now, I’ve been having an affair”

The color of her face turned as white as a sheet underneath the rosy smears of make-up. She looked up at him, her breath audible, her eyes sharp.

“With who?”

He sat down again. Heaves of remorse and memories of his lover made his stomach upset as he tried to formulate his name.

“Yuuri” He whispered in a sprout of courage “I’m in love with Yuuri Katsuki”

. Never had Viktor seen her mother in rage, never had he seen her break her perfect composure, and that case was no exception.

Anger manifested in the brutal smash of crystal, her glass dropping to the ground and shattering in millions of pieces.

“Mother!”

“The butler” She gasped, her hand still shaped around a glass that wasn’t there “The bloody butler”

“I know you must be shocked, I know he’s a man, and that he’s not as wealthy as the girls you bring me but…you know him. He’s a good person, and he’s hard-working and smart, and he could have…”

“He’s a servant, Viktor!”

The sudden raise of her voice caught him off guard, and got his speech to get stuck in his throat.

Every night, every single minute of calm he had, he had spent it thinking of what he would say in the case she found out; how he would put into words that visceral, demolishing love he had been dealing with in silence. He had planned it all. Yet, as he looked at her in the eye, as he saw that face of sheer disappointment, he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“No one needs to find out…” He attempted “Our name will not be dirtied, we just have to…”

“Why? Why do you do this to me?”

“I’m being selfish, I know. I know I’m your only son and I know what my duty is. But I can’t do it. I’m sorry”

He could see her hands trembling, her nails clawing onto the skin of her palm and her knuckles turning white. Her wrinkled lips tried to shape around an insult, but the door to the kitchen was suddenly opened and they both turned to the sound.

“Excuse the interruption, enjoy your meal”

Viktor’s gulping echoed through the room as he saw Yuuri walking towards the table with a broom and a shovel, getting way too close to his mother for his own good. The poor man must have heard the sound of breaking glass and he had rushed in to help, as kind and careful as always. He seemed to notice the tautness in the air, judging by the way he kept slyly staring at their pursed mouths and the food, untouched and cooling on their plates. But he said nothing, and he continued with his work in silence.

He kneeled next to the chair, grabbing the biggest pieces of glass cautiously with his hand, and just when he was about to finish and Viktor thought he would get away with it and leave him out of that awful conversation, his mother spoke.

“Yuuri, what did you do this afternoon?”

“Don’t do this, don’t get him involved” Viktor was fast to interfere “Stop”

“Yuuri, darling, answer me”

The softness of her words was in no way matching with the tension in her voice.

“Uhm, I…I served tea to master Viktor and Miss Orland, madam” Yuuri answered, eyes unsure, torn between his boss’ expression and the mess on the floor.

“And after that?”

“I gave the gardener the instructions you indicated me, madam”

“I know, but that wasn’t until seven in the afternoon! What did you do in the meantime?”

Yuuri threw a short glance at Viktor, who was biting on his nails, and he decided to acknowledge his feeling of throbbing threat.

Yet, he didn’t know what was the threat all about.

“I spent some free time with Miss Yuuko, madam. I sometimes have spare minutes between chores and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I …I promise I wasn’t avoiding any task! I was just…”

“Oh, with Yuuko, you say?”

Yuuri nodded fretfully, standing up with his hands full of glass fragments, eyeing the door unnervingly.

“Uhm, yeah. If you excuse me, madam, I need to throw this glass away into the…”

“You stay right here!”

As soon as he turned to leave, the woman grabbed him vehemently by the arm and forced him to turn around, making him drop the pieces and wound his hand in the process.

He yelped, gripping his own wrist and watching it bleed.

“You dare lie to me!? What do I even pay you for? Molesting my son and then lying?”

Yuuri dropped to his knees again, seemingly dizzied by the sight of his own blood, eyes getting glassy as a mere reaction to aggression.

“You corrupted my son” The seriousness in her voice, the highness, made it all so much hostile. She wasn’t acting on instinct, she was grave, aware of what she was saying, never breaking the boundaries of her intimidating poise “You betrayed my trust, and you ruined this family”

“Mother, stop! He’s hurt!” Viktor jumped to his aid, trying to clean the blood with his own napkin and rubbing his back in comfort “Yuuri, are you ok?”

“That’s enough! Viktor, you and I need to have some serious talk! And you…” She turned to the butler, who was still trying to stop the bleeding “consider yourself fired”

For the first time through the whole display, Yuuri looked genuinely upset. His eyes shot open in despair, his jaw dropped and trembled in meaningless babbles he couldn’t even voice.

“But, madam!” he stuttered “I have a family, madam…my parents are…”

“You should have thought about that before, shouldn’t you?”

“You can’t do that! Mother, you are not like this!”

“I’m doing this for your own good, Viktor! I love you, I don’t want you to throw your life to the trash!” She exclaimed, her eyes getting watery for once “I can’t have him living in the same house as you, now that I know the truth”

Viktor tightened his hold around Yuuri, gripping onto him, remembering Adelia and her stallion and the cold.

If you love him, let him go.

“Then I’ll be the one leaving” He said, earning two shocked looks for an answer. “Mother, if you promise me to keep him safe and employed…I’ll move out this same summer, and I’ll marry Adelia Orland”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think about this AU? and what about the writing style?


	4. XX Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for this one... ALSO, WARNING!!! Idk if this may be triggering or offending for my queer pals, so I warn you: this has harsh mentions of homophobia. I know, I prefer this fandom to stay out of that kind of hate too. But this fic it's about history and how crude and cruel it was and I think discrimiation in the XX century is a topic I can't ignore. So I hope you don't mind...

Yuuri remembered as clear as day the first time he had heard that noise.

“Just pretend they are fireworks” His mother had told him, holding his hand and smiling reassuringly “Don’t mind them, and they’ll eventually go away”

He could still hear them, almost every day. He could still catch that faint whistling sound, the flashes of light entering through the window. The impact. Echoes of distant tragedies resounding through town, constant reminders of just how fragile everything was. Fragile houses, fragile bodies.

Just pretend they are fireworks, his mother had said. But it was hard to pretend they were fireworks when he had never actually seen fireworks in his entire life. And especially right then, when his mother wasn’t there to tell him pretty lies anymore.

For weeks now, it had been just him, him and Viktor. War had pushed way too many people away from town. Streets were almost empty; many children had been evacuated to less populated areas, and many families had managed to escape to other countries. Yet, those who stayed in town didn’t exactly feel at home either.

During the day it was almost easy.

His family’s groceries store was one of the last one standing, and the many customers managed to keep him distracted, mainly by complaining about the prices. Routine could be comforting, and Viktor’s presence in the house as he got back from work was helpful. Having another voice, other footsteps to listen to as he walked through the hallways, it was oddly uplifting.

During the nights, however, every distraction swirled out of grasp.

The permanent bags under his eyes were more than enough proof. He was a young man, barely nineteen by then, but the permanent shade of exhaustion was already printed on his face. He assumed he wasn’t the only one who had trouble sleeping, but he never asked. Viktor’s drained expression every morning as he sipped his coffee was sufficient confirmation.

He couldn’t help but think that Viktor had it worse. At least, Yuuri knew his own family was safe somewhere. Far and across the ocean, but safe nevertheless. His roommate had a whole different story behind; his loved-ones were still in that damn country, still under the threat of bombs and imminent assaults.

As he got home that evening and saw him staring into nowhere, stirring the pot absentmindedly as he made dinner, he considered asking what was on his mind.

He had known Viktor for more than two years then, and they had always gotten along just fine. When he first moved into his house Yuuri found it a bit weird, he was shy and awkward, and unused to have a stranger sleeping in the room next door. It didn’t take long for him to get used to it, Viktor was easy to live with. He was cheerful and easy going, his mood lighted up the whole house. Even though he didn’t know how to do any housework when he first got there, he let Hiroko teach him how to cook and he learnt wonderfully. Since he stayed all day inside, sometimes the Katsukis came back after a long day of work to a cleaner house and the smell of stew, and Yuuri couldn’t be more thankful.

He liked the sound of his laugh, his heart-shaped smile, his anecdotes, and his weird habits and traits. At some point, they had become good friends. His father had bought a radio to listen to the news and keep the family updated with the country’s disputes. When he wasn’t around, Viktor liked to play music on it, and they would listen to it for hours.

They mostly spent nighttime together. During those nights when the city was a mess, when there were soldiers in the streets and panic in the air; the kitchen table and two cups of tea were way more comforting than their own beds. One of them would knock on the other’s door, making sure they were awake, and they would spend the sleepless night together. They chatted about everything and anything. Their families, friends, work. The war.

Somehow, every conversation ended up there.

But talking about it with Viktor was different. He was full of hope, full of good thoughts for the future, and it made Yuuri felt unmeasurably comforted.

And yet, as he walked into the kitchen that night and saw him cooking with such a sour expression on his face, he didn’t say a word.

They hadn’t properly talked since Saturday. He wasn’t comfortable with his own thoughts ever since. Viktor was cursed with his condition, that sinful condition that had taken him away from his home and the hearts of so many friends. A condition Yuuri hadn’t really heard or thought about until he met him.

“He’s a homosexual” his father had said, all in the same breath, the night before they brought him home.

The way he pronounced the word, the cringe, it made Yuuri wary. Viktor was the son of one of his father’s closest friends, and when the Katsukis heard about the situation, of course they were the first to lend a hand. They didn’t know for how long they would have to hide him, how long it would take the authorities to realize the folly they were committing.

“He has an arrest warrant, they are looking for him”

The thought of a man being with another man sounded a bit odd to him. But going to jail for it, it was ludicrous.

Yuuri himself had never really thought about romance, about attraction, about sex. It all sounded so distant and foggy as a child, and he didn’t seem to have grown out of his apathy. He just needed to wait until it happened, he told himself. With the war, and inflation and everything, it was hard to get one’s mind to think about love.

But after that rainy Saturday afternoon, when they had found some of his father’s hidden beer, and they had drunk and laughed and goofed around and Viktor had kissed him, he couldn’t really think about anything else.

“You are early today” Viktor received him with dinner, as always, but his eyes were unusually distant “Easy day?”

“I guess”

A part of him wanted to be as talkative and open with him as he had always been, but his throat felt bloated with shame and the words got clogged in. Every time he looked at him, every time their eyes met as they ate, Yuuri’s stomach would purse a little more within itself.

The conversation died out immediately. Just like it had happened the day before, and the previous one. He wasn’t sure of what Viktor was thinking, but he must have been kind of offended, considering Yuuri avoided him like he had the plague.

Did he? Did he have a plague?

Was it reasonable for Yuuri to hold his breath each time he walked past him in a hallway? Was it logical to stay out from his room? Was it just paranoia to avoid using the same towels, cups or spoons?

He knew he was being delirious, he knew avoiding Viktor and his scent and his spit and the air he breathed wouldn’t help him avoid the unease he had planted in him, the doubt. He felt dirty in ways no shower could clean and what’s more, he felt uncomfortable in his own skin.

He wasn’t sure how long they would have to live like that. Yuuri had stayed in the country to keep Viktor hidden until the Nikiforovs gathered enough money to escape as well. But two days after his family parted, the authorities closed the access to the harbor until new notice. And that new notice had yet to come.

After he was done eating, plate so clean he could see his mournful reflection, he looked up to meet Viktor’s eyes. Trying to set the mood back to normal, he decided to turn on the radio.

“We should listen to something” He said, playing it safe “Do you want some music?”

“Listen to whatever you please” Viktor stood up from the table and put the dishes in the sink, as cold and aloof and ever.

Yuuri wanted him to stay, he wanted to talk to him like they always did. Quickly, he started switching through the frequencies, trying to find an audible station that would make Viktor change his mind. Maybe some jazz, or one of those Italian operas he seemed to enjoy so much.

As he found a hearable voice, however, it wasn’t precisely a singer.

“…many enemy planes had been registered, our forces’ speculations are that a severe rounds of aerial attacks may be awaiting the southern towns of the region. Our forces are already preparing a counterattack, but specialists suggest that…”

Yuuri’s hand froze in place, his skin as cold as the metal of the radio’s knob.

“Viktor…” He stuttered, looking at him, needing more than ever someone to share the weight of reality.

But as soon as he heard the news Viktor turned to leave and closed the door to his room behind him, leaving Yuuri in the kitchen alone.

It wasn’t the first time there was a major bombing. Luck was a twisted, incomprehensible thing, and Yuuri didn’t know what kind of wicked force got his house to stay standing. The closest they had been to getting hit was the day they targeted a nearby neighborhood. That one time, the ground had shaken so hard some books fell from the shelves, and his mother had accidentally dropped a glass bowl she was using to cook. He remembered how his whole family had gathered to hug in the living room; how he held Viktor’s hand, who was so far of his loved ones, praying for them to be safe. Ironically, he remembered how lucky they felt to be alive.

That night, as Yuuri tucked himself in bed, he couldn’t really think the same.

He was trembling, curled into a ball, his full head beneath the blanket as he breathed the same air for over an hour. He wanted to block the noises, the flashes of the explosions entering through the curtains. The whistling. The singing of yet another sentence falling straight onto god knows who, prolonged and acute, before it made impact and the ground shook. While it was still on the air, it was meant to anyone. And as Yuuri’s teeth clinked and clenched and his toes curled under the sheets, he could do nothing but cry and pray silently not to be the next.

Every now and then, a plane would fly way too close to the house, and he would dig himself onto the mattress as if it could absorb him. No matter how many nights, how many months, how many years; it was impossible to get used to the raid, the mousetrap their lives had become.

A particularly close explosion brought his clock to fall from the nightstand, a white flash of bright entered through the window and he let out a raw scream. He covered his ears with his hands, pressing as tight as he could until he heard nothing but his own blood running through his veins. He was going to die. There was no chance he could be lucky enough to survive this time. He was going to die that night, with his face pressed onto his knees and his fingers pulling from his own hair as he cried. Because leaving the bed, the room or the house was no form of evasion. The next bomb could fall right onto his floor tile or next door or three blocks to the left. He was going to die, and there was no escape.

“Yuuri?”

He must have shouted quite loudly, because next thing he knew, Viktor was staring at him from the doorframe. He was crying, too.

They looked at each other for some full seconds, as the walls continued to soak and spread the screams outside, and the room got constantly lit by the flash of distant impacts. Yuuri stood still, nails clawing onto the mattress as Viktor walked all the way across the room towards his bed. Neither of them said anything.

When Viktor hugged him, Yuuri already had his arms wide open to fit him into the embrace. He could feel him trembling within his hold, his fingers clenching onto the fabric of his clothes with every loudening noise. He wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything would be alright, but he was way too troubled trying to convince himself.

He traced his fingers through the short hairs of his undercut, through his stiff shoulders, his pulsing neck. He was alive. No matter if the world was ending outside, Viktor was still alive and his skin was still warm and there was blood running through his veins. It made Yuuri feel alive, too. Alive, and somehow safe.

When the next bomb exploded, not that far away, he felt him sob onto his skin and for a moment, Yuuri thought that if he could cancel any noise from existence, it would be the one of Viktor’s crying. Without thinking, he took both of his hands to cover the other’s ears. He pressed hard, releasing his tension through the hold, as Viktor stared back at him.

Through the dimness of the room, he could barely see anything but the shine of his teary eyes, glinting with every flash of light that entered through the window, pupils minuscule and scared.

Yuuri caressed the tears away with his thumbs and mouthed a shushing. Viktor pursed his lips, taking his own hands to cover Yuuri’s ears as well. His palms were soft. So warm and big they almost managed to muffle every noise. But it wasn’t the blocking of the sound what made him deaf to the hell outside, but the bare touch of his skin against his, the intimacy, the returned favor. As they looked into each other’s wet eyes, legs tangled and noses almost touching, they breaths were finally able to ease.

He knew he wasn’t safe, he knew Viktor could protect him from no harm. There was no logical explanation for the warmth and the ridiculous serenity he could absorb from his embrace. At least, no explanation he was willing to accept.

“Viktor?” He murmured, hands still pressed onto his ears, but he seemed to listen all the same “How did people realize you liked men?”

Viktor hummed thoughtfully, letting go of Yuuri’s face.

“Why so curious?” He asked, but it wasn’t teasing. There was some sort of resistance in his voice, some sort of caution that almost made Yuuri take his words back. But the sound of talking was way better than the noises coming from the streets, even if it was wary or remorseful.

“I don’t know. I just need to know”

Viktor seemed to soften a bit, as if he saw some innocence within Yuuri’s qualms, something familiar.

“I was a regular client at a certain tavern…” He breathed out “A certain tavern, that was concurred by certain kind of people…”

“What do you mean?”

“It was a place where we could meet other men like us. And we would chat and drink, you know? I guess they just made a list of the men they saw in there and now they are hunting them”

Yuuri deadpanned.

“Just because of a bar?”

“Just because of a bar” Viktor sighed, looking away “And that was before they burnt it down”

“What? Just like that? They burnt it overnight?”

“No, Yuuri. They burnt it in broad daylight, with people inside”

A shiver broke through his spine like an arrow, pushing every single hair in his body to sand on end. He covered his mouth, trying to repress the bubbling fear, the steam of his boiling gut powering his heart to race.

“Oh my god” He shrunk onto his skin, feeling feeble and threatened, alienated “Did you…did you know any of the victims?”

Viktor swallowed hard, and for a moment he seemed to doubt whether to answer or not.

“My former boyfriend”

Another bomb, even closer.

Yuuri didn’t suppress the sob that escaped his lips, nor the sudden need to hug Viktor close as he cuddled further onto his hold.

“I’m sorry” He cried onto his clothes “I’m so sorry, Viktor”

More explosions were coming from outside, loud a brute and devastating. Viktor hugged him back.

“Don’t be sorry” He whispered “You are the closest I felt ever since to being loved”

Yuuri remembered Saturday; how he had acted since that night, how he had avoided him and how heartbroken Viktor had seemed.

“I love you” He whined, wanting to leave no place for doubts “I do love you, Viktor”

Another bomb. This time, on their same block.

Just pretend they are fireworks, his mother had said. But as Viktor leaned in and kissed him right then, he was pretty sure that was what fireworks really felt like.

The neighbors were screaming. Yuuri could hear familiar voices shouting familiar names. The ground was shaking, the chandeliers were swinging, and the plates and glasses they had used for dinner were falling and breaking in the kitchen. And Yuuri knew, now for certain, that he was going to die.

But he wasn’t crying anymore.

Because, if he didn’t die right then, he was probably going to die tomorrow. Or the day after, or maybe the next week. Being it hunger, bombs, or his undying love for another man, he was going to get killed.

And if that was going to happen; if he was going to die a pitiful, vicious death, he wanted it to be just like that. In his bed, wrapped between Viktor’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, and sorry again.  
> This is the chapter I changed the most, I hated how it was originally written by younger me, and im still not 100% happy with it. I wanted to play with time and go back and forth to generate suspense but I don't know if it's clear enough...did you guys like it? is it comprehensible?


	5. XXI Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok buckle up cause this one is LONG an f PAINFUL

Yuuri walked the halls in a haze, head dizzy with slumber and the strong scent of disinfectant always lingering in the air. Around him, a sea of masked faces; waves of muffled voices speaking in a hurry, giving directions and indications to every doctor. At any moment, one could be directed to him. That’s how it’d been for fourteen consecutive hours: instructions, disinfection, patient, vitals, disinfection again, more instructions, repeat. Shifts had become eternal and irregular, and working on the underground levels of the hospital he sometimes lost track of time.

Yuko was nowhere to be found. With each week passing by, the floor seemed to get more and more crowded: more face-shields and gowns and gloves moving around the hallways in a restless frenzy, pushing gurneys and equipment. Yuuri didn’t recognize them as workmates anymore, he barely recognized them as human beings. As he transited the clinic, looking for his fellow pulmonologist, all he saw were empty robes, empty bodies walking.

It was better that way, he preferred to be numb. He had learnt to ignore the sting of the cloth against the skin of his face, and the rash on his hands from using so much sanitizer. He had taught himself to turn a deaf ear to the news, those conversations he overheard in the corridors. Numbers were just numbers; he didn’t care what they were counting. He didn’t want to understand the meaning behind those growing digits, there was no use. He was already giving his best, and the hospital was already jam-packed.

“Yuuri!”

“Yuko” It was her who found him, intercepting him in the hall. “Room S22, second bed to the left”

The woman nodded, saying no more and disappearing into the crowd.

That’s the way things were. Patients may be recovering and showing improvement, and all of a sudden the oxygen levels would drop. Yuuri or any of the other pulmonologist was called immediately, yet there was very little to be done. They had run out of artificial respiration equipment, and it was very unlikely to find one available. Doctors would gather around the patient, they would check their vitals, practice CPR and pray. And before they could wrap their minds around it, they would get a call from another room.

“Dr. Katsuki?”

He was willing no one would stop him this time, but it was a foolish wish. His shift had probably ended hours ago, but every time he headed to the staff room for disinfection and grabbing his stuff, he would be given a new order.

“Yes?”

“They are calling me from the third floor, could you please cover me for a while in room S17?” Only then he recognized the voice and the eyes above the mask. Dr. Nishigori, a cardiologist. “A patient says she’s having chest pains”

It wasn’t Takeshi’s fault; he probably didn’t know Yuuri was supposed to leave. They were all submerged into the same madness.

“Sure”

Room S17 was originally designed for five patients. Right then, it held eight. People on that floor had already tested positive, so there was no risk of them spreading the virus to each other. The doctors, however, had to stay shielded. And even though Yuuri was barely 30 years old and had no serious risk, he didn’t want to be yet another body occupying a bed.

When he got into the room, all the lights were off. A nurse explained the pained patient had fallen asleep shortly after complaining, and that her signs were ok. She asked him to check on them himself nonetheless, and left to the room next door.

Yuuri found himself alone, surrounded by eight unmoving, laying bodies. He checked on that particular patient, and then the rest just in case. Behind the closed door, he could still hear the inferno of hurried steps, the gurneys’ rusty wheels and the doctors’ voices. Inside, it was even worse. The silence was dense and carried the sound of ragged heavy breathing, occasional coughing, and the constant hum of the clinic’s machinery.

As he looked at the beds, he thought about his textbooks from collage. Inflammation of the alveoli, acute respiratory distress syndrome, lung stiffness due to excess of liquid. It was easier for him to think of them like mere anatomy examples, sole flesh and bone. He knew more about their lungs than he knew about their lives and that was ok. His job was to keep them breathing, keep the oxygen flowing and the hearts beating. Like a watchmaker, he kept systems going, gears working accordingly.

Sometimes, he would remember they were human beings.

The clock on the wall hit three in the morning. Yuuri could feel the weight of exhaustion on him, the soreness of his feet and calves from walking all day long, the hunger. He hadn’t eaten all day. He hadn’t rested.

He realized he was expecting his return home as if it meant any kind of freedom at all, as if the memories from the intensive care room wouldn’t haunt him in his own apartment, even in his deepest sleep. The end of his shift wouldn’t mean the end of the pandemic. The hospital would continue to work, and people would continue to die.

In a moment of weakness, driven by the exhaustion and the relief of being alone for a minute, he started to cry.

In silence, as not to wake any of the patients, he let his body rest onto the wall, too weak to carry itself. He felt small, disappearing inside his gown. His eyes were sore, the plastic of his face-shield was getting foggy and he couldn’t even take his hand to clean it.

He wasn’t the first doctor to break down. He’d seen others in the hallways, sobbing to themselves as they kept on with their tasks. Numbness could only last as much. So he let the wave of sadness go through him, knowing it would eventually pass. Duty would call nonetheless and he would be back in march. For the moment though, he allowed himself to weep in silence, shoulders shaking underneath the heavy fabric of his robe.

“Are you ok?”

The voice almost made him jump out of his skin.

He looked towards the door, seeing if any other doctor had come in. Yet, the voice was coming from one of the beds.

“I’m good, I’m all good” He nodded, immediately swallowing the remaining grief and keeping it to himself, mortified by the idea of a patient seeing him in such a weak state. “I’m sorry if I woke you up, go back to rest”

“I wasn’t sleeping” The man, who didn’t seem much older than Yuuri himself, spoke quietly and with a sweet voice. Even though it sounded rusty and sick, it was really soft, and it carried a foreign accent. “I doubt anyone finds it that easy to sleep nowadays”.

Yuuri sighed, getting a bit closer to the bed as to be able to see the other through the dimness of the room. The pair of eyes leaning out his mask was blue and shiny, lighting up the rest of his face. He had never seen this man before.

“It’s alright, Mr…” He grabbed the medical record stuck to the bed’s frame to read his name “Mr. Nikiforov. You should try to rest nevertheless, it’s good for your health”

“Say that to yourself, you look exhausted”

Yuuri looked up from the paper, taken aback. He couldn’t quite acknowledge the kind intentions behind those words, since that seemed no way to talk to a doctor. Yet, in such a state of vulnerability, he couldn’t get mad either.

“I’m just doing my job, sir.”

“It’s inhuman. How many hours have you been here?”

Despite the man’s cheekiness, Yuuri felt an odd sense of reassurance.

“About fifteen”

“Woah, that must be exhausting. I would be crying too”.

The shame was all the way back, this time hiding in a bit of prudent anger.

“I wasn’t crying”

“Must be the fever that has me delirious” The man said, and Yuuri’s concern must have been kind of obvious, since he immediately retracted “I’m just joking”

“I doubt anyone finds it that easy to joke nowadays”

The sassiness got him a smile for an answer. He couldn’t quite see it under the mask, but he noticed the way his eyes narrowed and his cheeks lifted.

“Touché”

That being said, Yuuri felt he had the way clear for a swift escape. He needed to go back to his apartment, and he didn’t feel comfortable getting so involved with patients. So, with a polite bow of his head, he excused himself.

“If you don’t mind, Mr.Nikiforov, I should go. Make sure to rest.”

“What’s your name?” He didn’t let him turn around. For a sick man, he was surely a chatterbox.

“Dr. Katsuki”

“Katsuki…sounds foreign”

“Japanese”

“Thought so.” He made a short pause, lying on his side with his head propped on his elbow, “How long have you lived here?”

“Oh, I was born here in Detroit. My parents moved shortly after they got married” Yuuri felt it would be impolite not to ask him back. “What about you?”

“I’m Russian, I was here for a business trip when they closed the frontiers” As the man spoke, he let curiosity guide him and took another look into the medical record. Viktor Nikiforov, 32 years old. “I was thinking about staying longer, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Well, you seem to have a case of viral pneumonia” He said, reading lazily “You are very young and don’t have any preexisting lung conditions, so it don’t think we’ll keep you here for much longer.”

“I have asthma”

Yuuri lowered the record.

“You are asthmatic?” He saw Viktor give him a quick nod, and returned to read the report back and forth. “It’s not in the record!”

“Does it change anything? I did tell the nurses though”

“It changes everything.” Yuuri grabbed a pen from the desk and wrote it on top of the record in big capital letters. “It’s severe medical malpractice not to take it into consideration, asthmatic patients require more attention”

He put the record back in place and looked for a stethoscope and disinfectant.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to be checked on more often. And that the symptoms and oxygen values that are considered stable for others, on you might implicate risk”

“Oh.” Viktor sat up, as he saw the doctor cleaning and putting on the device. “I’m feeling much better than when I got admitted yesterday though.”

“Might be the medicine covering the symptoms, lowering your body temperature.” Yuuri kneeled next to the bed, and pressed the metal drum onto the other’s chest. “Cough”

The sound was dry and wheezing, he could clearly hear it. They were supposed to keep as much distance as possible with the patients, but there were some tasks in which it became impossible. Whoever had taken care of this man before had clearly not done a good job, so Yuuri took his time.

“Thank you”

He stared up at him, hand still pressing the stethoscope into different areas of his torso. For a moment he wondered how the rest of his face looked without that mask. Then, he looked away.

“You’re welcome. I’m just doing my job”

“Yeah, but you are really dedicated, and kind” Viktor said. “You just gotta give me a lolly and you’ll be the best doctor ever”

Yuuri couldn’t help but laugh; quite a loud snort escaped his restrains but he immediately lowered his voice, since there were sleeping patients around.

“I’m a pulmonologist, Mr. Nikiforov, not a pediatrician.”

“What? I’m a kid at heart.”

“I can tell” Yuuri smiled, putting his stethoscope away. “Well, your heart doesn’t quite sound as a kid’s, but it is fine. I’m just going to prescribe you some bronchodilators because of your asthma”

“Alright, alright” Viktor leaned down again, resting on his side. “I haven’t had an asthma attack in a very long time though” 

Yuuri wrote down the name of the medicine on the patient’s record, so that the nurses would give it to him together with the other treatments.

“Just in case”

He knew that was it, as he closed the folder, he knew his job in room S17 was done. He should be going home, to rest and take a shower and eat, before he was forced into another everlasting shift. For a moment, he felt like he didn’t want to go.

Viktor was looking at him rather steadily and he assumed that was his way of telling him to leave. As he made his way to the door though, he heard his voice once more:

“Will you come to check on me tomorrow?”

Yuuri could hear his own heart now, beating in his ears. He turned to look at him over his shoulder, hand already on the doorknob.

“Well, you have pneumonia _and_ asthma. You’ll need me around”  
  
He didn’t know what face Viktor was exactly making under his mask. Yet, he liked to imagine him smiling.

“See you then”

* * *

Yuuri thought about Viktor though all of his bus ride back home. Since people stayed at home in quarantine, public transport was always pretty empty. Especially being four in the morning, before even the sun had ventured to come out.

As soon as he got to his apartment, he kicked off his shoes and left them outside. It was still weird for him not to be welcomed by some loud barking whenever he opened the door, but it was better that way. Vicchan was much happier at his parents’ house, with actual people around. Whenever Yuuri left his apartment he didn’t know when he’d come back, and he needed someone to feed and care of his pet. Phichit, his roommate, wasn’t living there anymore either. He had kicked him out as soon as the hospital had its first coronavirus cases because he was terrified of infecting him. So Yuuri came back every day to an empty home.

He closed the door behind him and took off his every garment, throwing them into the washing machine and walking naked towards the bathroom. His reflection was merciless. Dark bags under his eyes, chapped lips, red bruises around his cheeks and wherever his mask touched. Being naturally chubby, he barely recognized the body he was cleaning in the shower right then, pale and scrawny and weak. And no matter how much he scrubbed, how much antibacterial soap he applied, he couldn’t erase the memories of the hospital from his buzzed head.

Yet, that day he didn’t really mind. As he let the warm water loose the tense muscles of his back, he remembered Viktor, his positive attitude, his jokes. That man was a rare case for sure, acting flirty in such a context. Yuuri didn’t care, somehow. He was in terms with his own sexuality by then, but he wasn’t in terms with the idea of getting involved with patients that way. He was allowed to think about him though. Fantasize a bit, recreate in his mind the missing piece of his face the mask wouldn’t show.

He knew he shouldn’t get that worked up. Viktor was just a patient, after all. And patients came and went.

* * *

The next day, he spent the afternoon mainly checking on new patients. Swabbing and diagnosis of the virus wasn’t his area; that was done on the upper floors. Only people who had already tested positive were taken to the basement’s rooms, where Yuuri worked. The hospital’s routine was draining as always, and he had been able to set his usual numb state of mind. He was waiting with Yuuko for some x-rays to be developed so that they could examine the newly admitted patients, when she inopportunely commented:

“You look distracted today”

Yuuko had always been very perceptive, and she always caught up with Yuuri’s feelings. Sometimes, even faster than Yuuri himself.

“Do I?”

“I don’t know, kind of.”

The radiologist came out of the x-ray room and handed each of them an envelope without much further explanation. They walked through the crowded hallways, always in a hurry, dodging people on the way. Yuuri’s patient was a young lady, who was waiting for him to come back with her results at room S03. Even though she had tested positive and had quite a high temperature, she didn’t have any severe breathing problems. The x-ray was just to be sure, it was better to follow the protocol.

“I’m back, sorry for the wait.” He rushed into the room, standing right before the girl’s bed and opening the envelope. “Let’s see, miss…”

As he searched for her name in the paper, something seemed to be off.

“Christophe Giacometti?”

“My name is Sara” She pouted, arching a brow.

Yuuri felt awfully embarrassed. The radiologist must have had confused the envelopes, which meant Yuuko had his. After a thousand apologies, he rushed out of the room and tried to find his workmate. She should be wherever this Christophe guy was staying, so he searched for his room number on the sheet.

S17.

All the thoughts that popped into his mind right then were immediately swept under the rug. While he was in service, any part of his brain that wasn’t devoted to medicine had to be put on hold. It had to wait till his bus ride back home, the bathtub, or the confidence of his bed.

“Yuuko” He called out, yanking the door open in a rush.

There were no other doctors inside.

“Dr. Katsuki?”

Yuuri stiffened a little, almost crumpling the envelope in his hands.

“Good afternoon, Mr.Nikiforov.” He said, making an effort to look away “Giacometti? Is Mr. Giacometti here?”

“That would be me”

He walked towards the man’s bed, which was right next to Viktor’s and made it even harder to focus.

“My apologies, the radiologist got confused and handed me your x-ray instead.”

“I know, Dr. Nishigori is looking for you as well, she just left the room.” Christophe said, and it didn’t really seem like he cared about the mistake. “I’m actually surprised you didn’t run across her in the hallway.”

Yuuri took a deep breath, kind of restless, bouncing a little on his heels.

“I should wait for her here then.” He looked at Viktor with the corner of his eye as he spoke. “If not we’ll be chasing each other around the hospital to no end”

He felt guilty for actually having an excuse to stay, like wasn’t supposed to. Trying not to make his fluster too obvious, he began to check on all of the patients one by one, asking if they were ok and how were they feeling. Wasting time wasn’t something he felt comfortable with.

He saved the best for last though. Against his professional will, he couldn’t help but feeling more and more excited as he neared Viktor’s bed. He could feel his eyes piercing holes onto the back of his head, waiting patiently for him to finish taking a middle-aged lady’s temperature.

“How are you?” He heard him say, before he could even put away the thermometer.

“I’m the one who should be asking you that. You are the patient, Mr. Nikiforov”

“We can change roles for a day. I bet I’d look good in a robe”

Yuuri looked around, paranoid any other patient found their conversation weird. Only Christophe seemed to be paying attention.

“I bet you would” He tried to sound ironic, but he wasn’t sure he did. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’ve been having some catarrh, you see”

“Catarrh?”

“Yes, a lot of catarrh. I can feel it, like, in my chest.” Viktor took a hand to his sternum, pouting theatrically “You should check on me”.

Yuuri seriously doubted it. Just the day before, his symptoms had been completely different, with asthma’s characteristic dry cough and no mucus.

He put on his stethoscope, skeptically kneeling next to the bed and listening to his lungs again.

“Cough.” He ordered, and Viktor did, sounding just as dry. “Again”

He looked up at him, frowning on purpose. He could almost see him smiling to himself under the mask.

“No catarrh? My bad.” He had the audacity to act all innocent, shrugging it off.

“You know it is highly unethical to bother a doctor during his shift, right?”

“How can I bother him outside his shift, though?”

Yuuri sighed so bad the plastic of his face-shield got fogged. He hoped the hospital’s constant hubbub had been loud enough to prevent anyone from listening to such a conversation. Yet, Viktor seemed to be genuinely expecting an answer, and over a million follies crossed through Yuuri’s mind at the speed of sound.

“Yuuri!” Yuuko ran into the room, envelope in hand, bringing him back to reality “There you are!”

“Oh, thank goodness”

He stood up quickly, grabbing the x-ray and giving her Christophe’s.

Yuuko opened it immediately and went back to work. He knew he needed to do the exact same thing, but he made a short pause to grab a pen and paper.

“Although you seem to have no catarrh, Mr.Nikiforov” He said, writing swiftly as he spoke “I’m going to prescript you this new treatment.”

And before he rushed towards Sara’s room and back into the hospital’s rhythm, he handed Viktor the folded paper with his phone number, not even waiting to see his reaction.

* * *

That night, Yuuri’s shift ended a little bit earlier than the day before, and he resurged back to the surface and onto the empty streets of quarantined Detroit at around 2 AM.

Every time he crossed the main entrance and left the hospital he felt an uplifting sense of relief: from not wearing the face-mask and the gloves anymore; the fresh breeze, in contrast with the stuffed air inside the building; and the moonlight, so soft and subtle, after so many hours of bright artificial lighting.

That day though, there was more to it.

Yuuri grabbed his belongings from the staff room in a hurry, but he didn’t dare to check his phone right away. He could have easily made a quick stop at room S17 before he left but he didn’t have the guts. Instead, he decided the moment of truth would be on the bus.

So as he sat down on the seats of the back, eyes sore from the exhaustion and his dry contact lenses, the first thing he did was checking his notifications. Between a message from his sister and one from Phichit, there was an unknown number.

_“I like this new treatment you gave me, I’m already feeling better.”_

Yuuri bit his own smile, feeling ridiculous.

The message had been sent at 8:34 PM, probably not much after he gave him his number. He couldn’t believe what he had done. Viktor was probably sleeping by then, but he answered anyways just because he couldn’t restrain himself.

_“Dr. Katsuki always at your service, sir”_

He opted to keep the playful doctor role, since he still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with what he was doing. His own audacity caught him by surprise; he never thought he’d have the guts.

He couldn’t help but opening his profile pic, wanting to know how the entirety of his face looked like behind the mask. Viktor was posing next to a younger blond guy and a dog. His hair looked clean and stylish, way shinier than under the hospital’s gloom. His clothes were casual but trendy, and he was wearing sunglasses on top of his head. And his smile. Yuuri had tried to imagine it, he had seen traces of it in his eyes as they joked. But he could never have pictured it that way, so white and heart-shaped. The man was beautiful.

Self-consciousness didn’t take long to start piling up. He had the sudden urge to check his own profile pic, even though he had had it for months, just to see what Viktor had seen of him when he entered the chat. Suddenly, he hated it. But before he could go hunting for mistakes on his own face, he got a message. Unknown number again.

_“I heard Dr. Nighigori called you Yuri today. Is that your first name?”_

He was nearing his house. Even as he got off the bus he did it with his phone in hand, typing.

_“It is.”_

_“Funny, that’s my step brother’s name. He’s the one in my profile pic.”_

_“How old is he?”_

_“21, we get along pretty well. You got any siblings?”_

_“An older sister, but I haven’t seen her since quarantine started.”_

_“Yikes. Well, I haven’t seen Yuri since…Russia”_

Replies were fast. Yuuri was good with that, but Dr.Katsuki wasn’t as much.

_“Shouldn’t you be sleeping, though? I thought I advised some rest”_

_“You are no fun. I should say the same thing though! SLEEP!!!!”_

Yuuri got to his apartment and started the ritual: shoes outside, clothes off, shower. Once he was done with disinfection, he put some frozen food into the microwave and ate in the kitchen. He usually avoided that, and opted for a snack he could take to his room. Sitting at the table alone, without Phichit to chat about their day or Vicchan begging for food, was awfully depressing. That night though, the constant beeping of his phone kept him distracted.

And as he tucked himself in bed and closed his eyes, for the first time in weeks, the hospital wasn’t the last thought to cross his mind before he fell asleep.

* * *

Through the next couple of weeks, Yuuri discovered that Viktor was, indeed, a kid at heart. Apparently he hadn’t been the only one to fall into his spell, because somehow the man had managed to befriend every other patient in the room. Especially Christophe, with whom he seemed to have a lot in common.

Room S17 didn’t count with a lot of equipment, it was only beds, so patients who were staying there didn’t really have severe symptoms. The worst malaise they all shared was the anguish, the loneliness. The risk of spreading the virus was so severe patients couldn’t receive visits at all, and in many cases they had been isolated for a lot of time.

However, every time doctors walked pass the door, they could hear chatter from inside. Viktor joked a lot, he commented on everything, and asked everyone about their lives. Even when he wasn’t feeling great at all, with a high temperature or a sore throat, he would still talk. Yuuri sometimes told him he would run out of air if he kept going, and he wasn’t entirely kidding.

His visits were scarce through the day, since he mostly took care of people who were in intensive care. Whenever he did though, it felt like a break. Not only Viktor was fun to be around, but he had also introduced him to other patients. They all greeted him when he came in, and Yuuri had even bothered to learn their names.

And during the nights, after his eternal shifts got to an end and he left the hospital, there were always messages waiting for him in his phone.

_“Roses are red  
the hospital’s white  
if I didn’t have coronavirus_

_I’d definitely tap that”_

Sitting at the bus was his favorite moment, when he could read all the nonsense Viktor had sent him through the day.

_“Ask the nurses to check your temperature, I think you are delirious”_

In very little time, he had learnt a lot about his life. He lived in St. Petersburg with his poodle Makka, just a block away from his mother and stepdad and brother. They were the only family he got, and they got along very well. He worked in a multinational steel company, and he was actually thinking about moving to Detroit, since was offered a promotion. In his free time, he liked to go ice skating.

_“It’s not delirious, it’s poetic”_

_“Shakespeare material”_

A ridiculous thought about tragic romances and separated lovers crossed his mind. The situation was certainly odd; flirting with a patient was already awkward enough, but being emotionally involved with someone you can’t touch, who you can’t even get close to without a mask on, it was confusing.

_“I can’t wait to take you on dates”_

That message made Yuuri feel way too good to be comfortable about it.

_“Even after you are admitted out of hospital, I doubt there’ll be any safe places for dates available anytime soon.”_

_“You must be fun at parties.”_

He smiled, a bit flustered, gathering up some courage to type his reply.

_“Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t deny you a date though”_

He hid his phone from himself inside his pocket, embarrassed to even look at the reply. He got off the bus, and it wasn’t till he was almost by his doorstep that he dared to check the chat.

_“Thank god the nurse isn’t checking my heart rate right now because it’s SPEEDING UP.”_

* * *

“Phichit, if someone tells you they would take you on a date if they didn’t have coronavirus, does it count as _dating_ per-se?”

His friend looked at him through the screen, his hand stopping midway as it took a spoonful of cereal to his mouth.

“This better be a hypothetical question.”

* * *

“Faster, Yuuri! Speed of sound!” Viktor insisted, sitting up on the gurney, besides being told not to multiple times. “Come on, take that curve at full speed, I dare you.”

“Shhhh!” Yuuri tried not to laugh, to actually set some authority, even though he knew it was useless.

“Come on! This is the first time I leave that room in weeks!”

He smiled, pushing his bed through the empty hallways. Whenever an infected patient needed to be translated to another section of the hospital, it was protocol to leave a free secluded path for the doctor or nurse to guide them through without running across anyone on the way. Afterwards, the path got disinfected.

“You are just going to the x-ray room, not to Disneyland.”

“Let me enjoy life. For now I’m just glad you took me out of there.” Viktor gasped “Oh my god, I just realized…you literally just took me out!”

“What?”

“Yuuri, this is our first date!”

This time, he couldn’t help but laugh. He shook the gurney on purpose, driving it in a zigzag motion through the corridor. Childishness seemed to be severely contagious as well.

“If you consider me checking your lungs a romantic activity, then yes, I guess.”

“That’s what I like about you, you care for who I am _inside_.” Viktor took a hand to his chest, dramatically. “That, and also Georgi told me today that our horoscopes are compatible.”

As days went by, faces had started to change in room S17. Many of the patients Yuuri had originally met had been taken back home already, almost completely cured. Each body was different and the reactions to the treatment variated. Some took longer and presented complications, and some were almost simple colds.

Viktor was taking a particularly long amount of time, so they decided to make another x-ray just in case. His constant good mood and bubbly nature could be deceiving, but Yuuri could notice he still had trouble breathing sometimes.

“You talk to Georgi? Yuuko says he’s a weirdo”

“He is, but he’s cool.” He shrugged. “I think he likes me cause I’m the only one who listens to his rants about his ex”

Yuuri snorted, getting into the elevator and pushing Viktor inside.

“It’s amazing, you can start a conversation with literally anyone”

“It’s both a blessing and a curse, I literally don’t know how to shut up. Hell, I don’t know what I’ll do once I’m out of here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, frontiers are closed so I don’t think I’ll be able to go back home. I’ll probably have to pay for a hotel for a lot of time, which my wallet isn’t really happy about, plus I’ll be completely lonely and quarantined for god knows how long. Can you imagine? Me? With no one to talk to? There’s a reason why I go bother my mom and my brother at least twice a day.”

Yuuri had never quite thought about that. After patients left the hospital, he assumed things just went back to normal for them. Being a doctor and working so many hours a day he had been kind of alienated from the world, and he hadn’t really stopped to consider how messed up everything was.

“Have you been talking to your family? How are they doing?” He asked, changing the mood completely. Yet, it didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“They are fine, I’ve been texting them lots. Russia is strict with quarantine measures so I trust they’re safe. Yuri is annoyed as hell though, he’s restless. He says that if he has to stay one day more inside the house he’ll go insane.”

“Sounds like my friend Phichit.” Yuuri said, smiling a bit. “He says he misses his life.”

Viktor sighed, resting his body on his elbows and laying back on the bed like he was supposed to. He stared at him in the mirror and their eyes met for a second, before he looked away.

“I miss my life, too. Life and love.”

* * *

About a week later, Christophe was discharged from hospital.

Viktor was very dramatic about it. Of course, they had given each other their phone numbers and promised to stay in contact. That same afternoon, as soon as the man got back to his home, he sent him a picture of his cat.

Yuuri didn’t really have the chance to say goodbye, since his shift started around midday. He got there and found Viktor staring at an empty bed, as moody as ever. They were both very happy for him, but it was weird not having him around after a month of seeing each other every single day.

After the disinfection, his place was immediately taken by a new patient. The hospital was getting more and more busy every day, with cases skyrocketing faster than they could possibly handle. They couldn’t add more beds into room S17 because they didn’t fit anymore, respecting the 1.5 mandatory meters between each. The government had promised them more founds for ventilators months ago, but they never really came.

Yuuri got nauseous each time he turned on the TV and found another manifestation against the quarantine measures. He knew from experience, that a certain percentage of those protesters would show up in hospital with symptoms in about fifteen days. And they didn’t have beds, they didn’t have ventilators or resources whatsoever to help them through.

Viktor helped him stay optimist. The panorama was disenchanting, but experts said they were going through the peak. After it was over, cases would start to lower. He kept texting him good news from around the world, how some other countries were going back to normal again, or how wild animals had been wondering the streets of the empty cities.

“You look distracted today.” Said Josephine, a middle-aged lady who had been admitted into intensive care about a week ago. Yuuri was beginning to get used to being told that.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Josephine was an adorable woman, and old age appeared to have made her very open and sincere. She seemed to like him because he listened to her talk, and he let her show him pictures of her grandchildren.

“Stuff.” He said, a bit flustered, as he disinfected the thermometer. “Like, I’m thinking about asking something important, to someone.”

She smiled; her face was still mask-free from having her temperature checked, so Yuuri could clearly see the devious, pleased smirk that curled on her lips.

“Call it a fifth sense, but I think you might be in love with someone, young man.”

Yuuri stiffened, being caught off ward with such an assumption. He looked around, seeing no one else was really listening; and he looked within himself, not really finding a need to contradict her.

“I think I might, yeah.”

* * *

That night he left the hospital around 4 AM. It was very late, later than ever, so he wasn’t really surprised when he saw he had a message from Viktor saying he was going to sleep. It was better that way, he needed to rest. Yet, that didn’t mean he didn’t miss his chatter as he made his way back home.

It was drizzling, and Yuuri entertained himself watching the droplets falling on the window of the moving bus. His thoughts were a mess, tangling and untangling inside his brain like a skein of wool. Work kept getting more exhausting every single week, and his head just couldn’t keep up with everything: his apartment empty and messy, his family he barely had time to contact, the hospital getting crowded, and Viktor. Even if he didn’t want to, that man costed him many thinking hours a day.

He thought about his pneumonia, its ups and downs, and the way his body just couldn’t seem to get over it. He thought about his wellbeing, his optimism that seemed to gradually deflate as time went by. He thought about his brother and mother back in Russia, his job. Viktor was the family’s main economic support. And he thought about what would happen once he finally got discharged. Where would he go? Would he have enough money to sustain himself until the frontiers reopened?

Yuuri already knew what he wanted to do. Deep inside his mind, the decision had already been made. He had asked Phichit what he thought about it some days ago, and he had gotten his approval. He knew it was the right thing, but he couldn’t help to be nervous.

He took out his phone, opening Viktor’s chat and seeing his last message:

_“I’m going to sleep babe, I’m really tired today. Hope you get home safe.”_

He sighed deeply and stared at his own reflection on the window. He had to do it. It was the right thing, after all. No matter the embarrassment, the worst thing that could happen was receiving a no for an answer.

Without further ado, he started to write:

_“Hey Viktor, hope you are getting some rest. I know you’ll see this once you wake up, but I just wanted to ask…since you have nowhere to stay once you get discharged, and since you technically already had the virus and you are generating antibodies and there’s a very low risk of you actually getting infected again…would you want to stay at my place? It’s just a suggestion though! Don’t feel pressured at all! I just thought that well, since Phichit moved out I’m quite lonely, and you said you didn’t want to stay in a hotel. You wouldn’t be a bother at all, I’d love you to stay. So…yeah. Tell me what you think.”_

Yuuri almost missed his stop, and ran outside the bus onto the humid streets with his heart beating in his ears. He felt absurdly happy. Even though he genuinely dreaded rejection, he thought it was very unlikely. Viktor had shown nothing but interest and affection towards him. Plus, it was a very good offer: he wouldn’t have to pay for a hotel, and he would actually have some company a few hours a day.

As he reached his apartment, he couldn’t help to check for a reply just in case. Viktor seemed to suffer from insomnia quite frequently, so he kept his hopes up. He checked again after he took a shower, after he had dinner, and after he brushed his teeth. When he turned off his phone, already in bed and ready to sleep, he contented himself with the thought of waking up in the morning to a reply.

However, as his alarm went off at 11:30 AM, he had no new messages.

Something inside of him deflated. He checked the chat, and apparently his message had never been opened. Relief washed the imminent fear of rejection, as he saw Viktor hadn’t been online since 2:12 in the morning.

He got dressed, making sure not to leave his phone in silent mode, as he prepared for work and made something to eat. At some point he heard a beeping sound, and he almost dropped the frying pan only to realize it was just a meme from Phichit. He breathed in and exhaled slowly, he needed to get himself together.

It was usual for Viktor to sleep till midday sometimes, but he was usually awake by the time Yuuri got in the bus, so he found it weird when he still received no reply.

He got to the hospital, greeting the receptionist and going through the disinfection protocol. He put on his gloves and face-shield, and before someone could stop him with an order, he made his way to room S17.

Yet, as he opened the door, the second bed to the left was empty.

Yuuri stood still, hand still frozen on the doorknob, his head going back and forth between infinite possibilities. Had they taken him to the x-ray room again? Was he getting swabbed? Taking a shower?

He turned back to the hallway and saw Dr. Nishigori walking through; he seemed distracted reading a medical record, until Yuuri grabbed him by the arm.

“Takeshi.” He said, grip getting stronger. “Do you know where Mr.Nikiforov is?”

“Who?”

“Nikiforov, the man that’s missing in room S17”

“I don’t know, I just got here, Yuuri. You should ask someone from the morning shift…look, there goes Dr.Okukawa.” Takeshi pointed at her, making signs with his hands. “Dr.Okukawa!”

Minako, the infectologist, faced them both with a tired look. She must have been about to leave, judging by sour face she made when they stopped her.

“Do you know where the missing patient from room S17 is?”

“What’s his name?”

“Nikiforov.” Yuuri blurted out, losing his patience. “Viktor Nikiforov”

Minako’s frown melted down in no second. Her body, which was facing away from the conversation and ready to leave, turned to face Yuuri as she looked at him in the eye.

“Was he your patient?” She said, voice deep and soft. “I’m really sorry, Katsuki. He passed away a few hours ago.”

Words didn’t make sense. They fell dryly inside his brain like echoing pebbles, meaningless.

“What?”

“It was very quick, during his sleep. We all did the best we could to reanimate him but it was useless.”

Yuuri leaned back against the wall, his body reacting faster than his brain, suddenly unable to hold its own weight.

“But…” he mumbled “he was doing very well, he didn’t present any anomalies yesterday.”

“You know how it is, patients may be recovering and showing improvement, and all of a sudden the oxygen levels drop.”

Minako’s words drowned inside his head. He heard no voices, no footsteps on the busy hallway. For a moment, he felt like he was using his stethoscope: all he could hear was the sound of a biting heart he failed to recognize as his own.

“Are you alright?” Takeshi might have noticed something was off, because he placed a gloved hand on his shoulder, gripping firmly.

“Where is he?” Yuuri asked, demanding, freeing himself from Takeshi’s hold. “Where is he!? I need to see him!”

“He’s not here anymore, he’s already at the morgue. We tried to contact his family but we don’t have any name, any number, not even an address…”

“He’s a foreigner. He lives…” he stopped himself, correcting the tense “…he lived in St. Petersburg, his mother and little brother were his only family.”

Minako and Takeshi looked at each other in shock.

“Yuuri, did you know that man?”

He nodded.

“Were you…were you two close?”

“Yeah, I guess”

He gave his back to both of them, walking away slowly.

“Wait, Yuuri!” They called after him. “Are you alright?? You look kind of pale, don’t you need to sit down for a bit?”

“I have to go to work” He said, or at least he thought he did so. 

And just like that, he disappeared into the busy hospital crowd. Numbly. And he spent the rest of the day, the rest of the week, of the month, checking on other nameless human bodies: main, lobar and segmental bronchus, cardiac notch, pulmonary artery, alveoli…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me your thoughts, not only on the chapter, but also on everything that's going on. I have a relative who works in a hospital here in Argentina, so most of the experiences in the story are from what I hear from her.  
> How are you dealing with quarantine? How's this crisis affecting you?


	6. XXII Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We reached the softer ending! Finally! I don't think this is enough to compensate 5 full chapters of merciless pain but...well...hope you enjoy lmao.

Viktor woke up curled onto the right side of the bed, as always. No matter what position he felt asleep in, in the morning he would find himself pressed against the wall, leaving an empty space in the mattress.

He sat up and stretched, feeling drowsy but well-rested. He had woken up before his alarm, arose by the gentle caress of sunbeam entering through the curtains. Makka was snoring gently on top of the rug, looking warm and peaceful, and his houseplants on the window rack were beginning to sprout.

He put on his slippers and stood up, heading to the bathroom. The apartment was way too silent.

“Radio on” He said, and the house’s speakers began to play a cheerful tune. It was an old one, from around the 2080’s, the kind of music his parents liked. Still, he knew the lyrics, and he hummed to it through all of his morning shower.

 _“Happy Environmental Revolution anniversary, everybody! What a better way to celebrate than a sunny day, 22° of thermal sensation!”_ The radio’s broadcaster announced, as Viktor wrapped himself around a towel _. “It’s 8:15 in the morning, and we are getting ready for the parade, only a few hours from now at the city center!”_

He ran from the bathroom to his room and got dressed in a hurry, not wanting to catch a cold. Even though there was a nice weather, he chose to wear a jacket just in case. He hated the idea of being sick.

By the time he reached the kitchen, Makka was already awake and following him around the house. He put some water in the coffee machine and fed his dog as he waited, just like he did every morning, humming to the radio’s tunes. When he poured himself his beverage, however, he realized he had made too much again. Two cups, exactly.

_“We remind our listeners that bus lines 2, 12, 13 and 24 won’t be doing their usual route due to the multiple streets that will be closed for the parade and its preparations. We suggest taking the metro…”_

Viktor looked at his watch. He could easily take the metro to work, there was a station nearby and although it was a bit crowded it was very fast. For some reason though, he felt like walking. It was a long walk but he had enough time. Plus, there was a beautiful day outside.

After placing his dirty cup in the sink and giving Makka one last pat on its curly head, he grabbed his briefcase and left the apartment.

Indeed, he didn’t need the jacket. Spring was warm and obvious in the air, with the streets smelling like orchids and fresh cut grass. Kids made their way to school, singing songs and chatting in small groups; and Viktor felt happy by osmosis, thinking he should go to work by foot more often.

The closer he got to the city center, the more he started to notice the airs of festivity. Since it wasn’t really a holiday people still had to work and do their everyday activities, but there were decorations all around and preparations for the parade: garlands with flowers and posters with pictures of Earth. A group of people with the city’s uniform were closing the streets with yellow tape, and another seemed to be installing the speakers and sound equipment. To his left, a huge sign read in bold green font: _with solidarity and organization, there’s wealth, health and equality for every nation_. He had designed that one himself, and he didn’t quite like it now that he looked at it from that angle.

He had heard a million stories from his teachers and parents about how life was like before the Environmental Revolution. It was hard to believe, quite honestly. Ever since he was a kid, the values of such a huge historical event were very present in his education and lifestyle, to the point he couldn’t imagine how the world worked before the _“In nature we trust”_ movement.

Of course, he’d seen pictures: smoky, crowded streets, so full of unnecessary individual cars and inefficient public transport. The ancient factories, with so many underpaid workers in poor conditions, producing an overpriced product for a corrupt company. How his ancestors had lived like that for so many years, it was beyond his comprehension.

He got startled by the sudden noise of his ringtone. He grabbed the device and put the earphone on; immediately, a holographic screen was projected in front of his eyes and a picture of Christophe appeared with both the _pick up_ and _hang up_ options.

“Chris, hi” He answered, swiping the hologram with his finger and turning it into a small image in his peripheral vision. “What do you need?”

“You told me to remind you about the presentation, remember? Please, don’t forget to bring the memory stick this time, the mayor won’t be pleased.”

“Too late, I already left my apartment, I decided to walk today.” He said, tightening his grip around the briefcase. “But lucky for you, I have the copy with me. Safe and sound.”

“Oh, are you at the city center? How do the posters look?”

“Mediocre, the green looks saturated as hell.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have printed them at that place, I don’t like the way they recycle the paper, it looks cheap. The other printing house did it much better.” Chris sighed at the other end of the line, frustrated. The entire campaign had been a pain for both of them and the rest of the team. “How long did the speech for the mayor turn out?”

“Well, about that…”

“You wrote too much again, didn’t you?”

“I was hoping you could help me trim it a bit”.

Viktor had been a bit absent-minded those last few days. Only last week, he had forgotten the memory stick with the presentation at the meeting with the mayor, he had sent an email with the budgets to a wrong address, and he had spilled his coffee on his desk twice. When his friend had asked him what was wrong with him, he didn’t really know what to say; just that he should be patient with him for a couple of days.

“You realize the ceremony is just a few hours from now, right?” Again, another sigh. “Ok, if I were you, I would cut the part where it talks about the protests and strikes that arose in every nation and blah, blah, blah…we don’t need a history lesson, everyone knows what happened.”

“If that were the case, we should cross out the whole explanation about the social and environmental demands”

“No, no. I like that part. We could make it shorter though, avoid that moment when it mentions every point of the United Nations resolution, and just say they redistributed wealth and created an equal system to cover everyone’s bare necessities. I like the way you redacted that: _from that moment on, nature would be the main focus. And nature meant human beings, their environment, and their rights_.”

“Yeah, I’m proud of that part too. You have the document open? Are you editing what we say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are a lifesaver.” Viktor’s walking came to a sudden halt, as he realized he almost crossed the street with a red light. “Sorry for being such mess lately.”

“It’s ok, no big deal. We’ll correct the last details in the office before the mayor’s rehearsal for the ceremony. Are you sleeping well though? You are so distracted”

He was sleeping well. In fact, he was sleeping better than ever. Ever since his publicity team had started taking care of the city’s multiple campaigns, working had become a challenge. He was barely in his thirties and he had already gotten his dream job. Getting there had been certainly rough, and it kept his mind busy with his competitive nature and ambitious goals. But now, after he got what he wanted and made some order inside his head, he couldn’t help but notice an empty space.

“I’m ok, though I just feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Feeding the dog? Watering the plants? Calling your mother?”

He smelt the scent of bread in the air, coming from a nearby bakery. He was hungry.

“I think I didn’t eat anything with my coffee.”

“You are a disaster. Go have something, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye Chris.”

He got into the shop, driven by the smell, and chose something to eat from a wide variety of pastries in the showcase. In the end, he opted for a simple bread roll: plain, but warm and comforting. For a moment he felt like that was what he had been craving. Yet, he only ate half of it.

He was only a few blocks away from the office and he still had a lot of time to spare. He was walking through the main avenue where the parade would take place, observing the result of his work of months. The city organized the event with a lot of anticipation, and Viktor and his team and been in charge of everything, from the commercials to the speech the mayor would give. It all looked good, and he was very proud of his work.

Why wasn’t he happy, then?

All of a sudden, he heard a loud noise. Some of the city employees were testing the fireworks they would throw at night, but the sole explosion was enough to startle him. He hated loud noises. With his ears still ringing a bit he quickened his steps and, in his disorientation, he ended up stumbling upon the plant pot of a flower vendor.

He fell on his chest, quite badly, on top of the plant’s dust he himself had scattered. There were no major injuries, aside from the scratched palms of his hands and his pained dignity, as he realized he had made such a mess.

“Oh my god! Are you alright?”

A pair of boots stepped in front of him, and he was offered a hand to stand up. Despite his shame he accepted it, knowing it would be even ruder not to do so. He delayed the eye contact though, plainly embarrassed, thinking of a million excuses for his clumsiness.

“Thank you, I’m sorry for the mess, I don’t know what happened, I just…”

When their eyes finally met, he completely forgot what he was saying.

An odd, familiar feeling took over. He recognized that shade of brown, those big round eyes staring back at him from behind the glasses. Even if he couldn’t remember where, he had seen them before, he could fish the image from somewhere inside his memory; like a déjà vu, like the forgotten fragment of a dream that had come back to him in vigil. It didn’t make him anxious, nor confused, not even curious. As they stared at each other in silence, Viktor felt nothing but pure, utter relief.

“I’m so sorry.” He repeated, not needing to look back at the ground to know what it looked like “I didn’t look where I was going.”

“It’s ok…” His hair was dark and shiny, his face round, and he was wearing an old green apron with the logo of a daisy. On his left hand, there was an unfinished bouquet of roses he might have been working on before the incident. “Are you hurt though? That was quite a fall”

Whatever it was that was happening to him, the other man seemed to be experiencing it as well. He could see him narrowing his eyes, as if trying to find something within him, the answer to an unspoken question neither of them could understand.

“I’m all good, spotless”

“I shouldn’t have put that there…look at your clothes, oh my god.”

Only then, Viktor realized his white shirt was completely covered in dirt.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing, don’t worry!” He said, as he saw him grab a piece of rag from his pocket and try to clean his clothes. “I’ll fix it at the office. Plus it’s my fault, I should watch my steps. And I should definitely pay for that plant pot I broke”

“Oh, no, no! There’s no need, please!”

“I insist”

“Nonsense, in that case I owe you a shirt! We are even”

Viktor put his electronic wallet back inside his pocket, don’t wanting to be too pushy.

“Deal, then.”

The man opened his mouth to say something, but closed it right away. Again, silence. Talking felt superficial, just a formal excuse to stay there as they tried to figure out where they had seen each other before.

In a sudden call for reality, Viktor checked his watch and realized it was almost 9:30, and that he’d probably have to go buy a new shit before he headed to the office, since he couldn’t show up looking like that.

“I should probably go.” He said, clearing his throat. “Again, I’m very, very sorry. And thank you for your kindness”

“No problem. I recommend you to handwash the shirt, with warm water.” He pointed at his dirty apron “I kind of talk from experience”

“Thank you, and happy Environmental Revolution day.”

“Same to you”

Christophe was waiting for him at the office, they had to correct the speech, the mayor would probably want to have a meeting in a few hours and yet it took an actual effort to walk away. Something felt unsettling. He gave one, two steps forwards and out of the blue he stopped. In an abrupt impulse he turned around, not really thinking of what he was doing, and much to his surprise they both spoke at the same time:

“Excuse me!”

“Excuse me!”

Viktor saw the florist reaching out for him, confused and ashamed, as if surprised by his own actions. Both men looked at each other in awe, standing a few meters away from each other, with their cheeks tinted red and their eyes wide open as they tried to figure out what they were doing.

And in yet another act of inexplicable synchronization, they smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my friends says this doesn't sound futuristic at all lmao he's bullying me.  
> IMPORTAAAANT: ok not really, but I was thinking about writing an extra chapter, that would offer an alternative ending for every other chapter, in which viktor and yuuri don't, well...die lol I prefer the tragic endings in a poetic way, but since we are all kinda going through a hard time I thought a bunch of happy endings wouldn't do any harm. What do you think? would you like to read that? Let me know in the comments!   
> And thank you so much for reading!!


	7. ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS

Hey! I started writing alternative happy endings for each chapter. If you need to heal from the angst, here's some [happy fluff](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777067/chapters/59912866)! 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment! Support your local writer(?


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